Nanotechnology, the science of engineering materials with special properties at very small distance scales, has long been in search of a killer application. Now my Spidey sense is telling me it may have finally found one.
From a European physics journal:
Physicists have found the formula for a Spiderman suit. Only recently has man come to understand how spiders and geckos effortlessly scuttle up walls and hang from ceilings but it was doubted that this natural form of adhesion would ever be strong enough to hold the weight of real life Peter Parkers.
Recent research concluded that van der Waals forces – the weak attraction that molecules have for each other when they are brought very close together – are responsible for creepy crawlies’ amazing sticking power. It is the tiny hairs on spiders’ feet that attract to the molecules of surfaces, even glass, and keep them steady.
This discovery however has been taken one step further by research published Thursday in the Institute of Physics’ Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter to make sticky human suits.
Professor Nicola Pugno, engineer and physicist at Polytechnic of Turin, Italy, has formulated a hierarchy of adhesive forces that will be strong enough to suspend a person’s full body weight against a wall or on a ceiling, while also being easy to detach.
Carbon nanotube-based technology could be used to develop nano-molecular hooks and loops that would function like microscopic Velcro. This detachable, adhesive force could be used in conjunction with van der Waals forces and capillary adhesion.
They say such a Spiderman suit might be possible within a decade. I’m intrigued by skeptical. Theoretically it’s possible that we’ll one day use wormholes for time travel. Doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.
The paper’s author, interestingly, also recently had a paper that raised much doubt about the possibility that carbon nanotubes might be used for a space elevator tether.