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Nxylon: New super-black material made from wood
- secult 2y ago[flagged]
- interstice 2y agoNeither of those generally results in <1% light reflectance however.
- hsbauauvhabzb 2y agoLight doesn’t normally cut through solids, doesn’t mean lasers aren’t a useful or unexpected technology.
- Jarmsy 2y ago[flagged]
- romanobro56 2y ago+1 But I’d like to add I think the HN comment is right about 2% of the time
- rqtwteye 2y agoDon’t forget that writing nodejs code qualifies you to have an opinion on anything scientific.
- dang 2y ago"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- oniony 2y agoThis, different article, https://www.earth.com/news/new-super-black-wonder-wood-called-nyxlon-absorbs-almost-all-light/ https://www.earth.com/news/new-super-black-wonder-wood-calle..., suggests the process is high-energy plasma affecting the cut ends of the basswood fibres.
- bradrn 2y agoThat article has a paper link: https://doi.org/10.1002/adsu.202400184 https://doi.org/10.1002/adsu.202400184
- hoseja 2y agoHow does it compare to the other super-black materials, the Vantablacks and the like?
- HPsquared 2y agoProbably less carcinogenic.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoI dunno, it looks like they're creating carbon nanostructures; while wood carbon / soot seems fairly benign, I still wouldn't want to breathe it.
- cenamus 2y agoAnd tar/pitch is definitely carcinogenic
- tetris11 2y agothat's what a lot people with wood burners used to say...
- throwanem 2y agoYeah, but everybody chain-smoked from age 3 in those days, so it's not easy to tell.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoHere [0] is the paper in question, it has a chart that shows the reflection rate of this one at around 0.3 - 2%; the paper itself has the following quote for the competitors: > Far lower reflectance values have been achieved with materials containing aligned carbon nanotubes (CNT), for example a low-density CNT array (0.045%),[11] the coating Vantablack (0.035%)[7] and a CNT-metal foil (0.005%).[12] The current holder of the “record” for a low reflectivity material (<0.0002%) is an ion-track micro-textured polymer with anti-backscatter matrix.[13] So they're arguing that it's on-par with Vantablack but not the newer materials. [0] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adsu.202400184 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adsu.202400184
- raymond87butler 2y ago[flagged]
- emsign 2y ago[flagged]
- jug 2y agoI'm surprised they went for nxylon to combine nyx + xylon rather than, you know... nyxylon
- jawns 2y agoI think combining Nyx (dark) + xylon (wood) makes perfect sense in a vacuum. But these researchers have doomed themselves to forever explaining that no, they didn't misspell nylon, and yes, this is something completely different.
- stavros 2y agoYes but it's not Nyxylon, it's Nxylon
- birracerveza 2y agoI read the article and I kept reading it as Nyxylon, then I read the explanation and now I'm wondering why they didn't just call it that. Nyx + xylon. It's a perfect standalone name, why ruin it? Maybe copyright/trademark issues?
- thaumasiotes 2y agoIs nyx a normal word for "dark"? I would have thought "night". How do Greeks normally talk about darkness?
- dbacar 2y ago"The researchers have developed prototype watches and jewelry" What kind of a research team is this, fashion? :)
- tetris11 2y agoAlso, the black parts there really didn't look that dark.
- swiftcoder 2y agoThey are also all watch designs that I get served instagram ads for, coincidentally
- nvalis 2y agoI recognized the right watch immediately to be this one [0]. But i guess they just replaced parts of the watchfaces with their material? [0]: https://www.holzwerk-uhren.de/en/products/holzwerk-eifel https://www.holzwerk-uhren.de/en/products/holzwerk-eifel
- swiftcoder 2y agoThe one on the left appears to be this one [0]. [0]: https://magneticballwatches.com/products/simple-fashion-ball-magnet-watch?variant=44474096910622 https://magneticballwatches.com/products/simple-fashion-ball...
- MisterBastahrd 2y agoThose watches have crystals on them.
- kingkongjaffa 2y agoWhat’s the chemistry at play here to achieve this? Does it burn “lighter” compounds away to leave dark ones behind? Does it cause a reaction to turn lighter compounds darker? I couldn’t see details of the mechanism. Which is important since presumably some mechanisms would give a hint that the process can be tried on other materials or types of wood. The article mentions it works on other types of wood but doesn’t explain why, or if it works on all woods.
- cenamus 2y agoWell they say it doesn't rely on pigments, so I'm inclined to think it uses some sort of nano-structures, like "improved" vantablack. Like a forest where light goes in, but just get's scattered long before it can make its way back out. Ben did a really nice video about that homemade stuff, including (of course) some electron microscope images. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr1AiExSAnU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr1AiExSAnU
- flir 2y agoMaybe the cut cell acts like a hemispherical shell coated in carbon. Light enters, bounces around inside a couple of times, gets absorbed?
- neom 2y agoTwo things are at play, the lignin (light absorbing) is emphasized and the cellulose is burnt away (light reflecting), and it seems this combined pretty unique lattice system (they use a similar synthetic system when producing regular ultrablack paint but the natural one appears to be more complex) create the blackness.
- HPsquared 2y agoIt's probably a combination of the surface being black in colour (charcoal), plus a surface texture that absorbs light. It brings to mind the way feathers and insects often have brightly-coloured parts that aren't due to pigment but rather the microstructure preferentially absorbing/reflecting specific wavelengths, giving a colour. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_coloration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_coloration Similarly, I wouldn't be surprised if the microstructure is tuned to work best (lowest reflectance) in the visible light range. EDIT: limited wavelength range also applies to other "super-black" materials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_black#Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_black#Technology
- barrenko 2y agoHopefully the writers of Parks & Recreation will be aware of this research when writing the second reunion show. https://youtu.be/pTme7k5sV-o?si=sbAYH5FAg4n4G4LS https://youtu.be/pTme7k5sV-o?si=sbAYH5FAg4n4G4LS
- parpfish 2y agoHow much more black could it be? None. None more black.
- Hnrobert42 2y agoThe ceiling and wall tiles mentioned at the very end of the article sound really cool.
- pmcarlton 2y agoA room where all the walls, floor, and ceiling are made of this would be pretty disorienting, wouldn't it? Even with a light source that let you see all the people in the room, wouldn't it just look like you're all in a pocket dimension?
- Hnrobert42 2y agoWow. I didn't even think of that option! I was just thinking of accent tiles.
- digging 2y ago> Most surprisingly, Nxylon remains black even when coated with an alloy, such as the gold coating applied to the wood to make it electrically conductive enough to be viewed and studied using an electron microscope. This is because Nxylon’s structure inherently prevents light from escaping rather than depending on black pigments. I don't follow this at all. If it's coated with an alloy, Nxylon isn't on the surface of the object anymore, the alloy is. So the alloy should be reflecting light. What am I missing?
- vczf 2y agoA layer of very thin gold can be transparent.
- digging 2y agoI see, thanks for filling that in.
- wlesieutre 2y agoFamously seen on the Apollo space suit sun visors. Their gold layer is thick enough to look gold, but thin enough that you can see through it: http://heroicrelics.org/apollo-wwwttm/apollo-suit-a7l-leva-visor/dscd4567.jpg.html http://heroicrelics.org/apollo-wwwttm/apollo-suit-a7l-leva-v... http://heroicrelics.org/apollo-wwwttm/apollo-suit-a7l-leva-visor/dscd2891.jpg.html http://heroicrelics.org/apollo-wwwttm/apollo-suit-a7l-leva-v...
- ComputerGuru 2y agoYou can see through it at least in part because of the tint/opacity effect, where there is more light on the outside than the inside. It's why you can't see through it the other way around (it's reflective, you don't see the astronauts' eyes). That would imply the result of overlaying Nxylon with this would be gold-colored, not ultra-black..
- 2y ago
- peter_d_sherman 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAgnJDJN4VA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAgnJDJN4VA
- ted_dunning 2y agoSounds like a great way to build black body emission sources. Just panel the interior of a box with this stuff and put a hole in one wall. It does depend on the spectral properties a lot. Figure 3 in https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adsu.202400184 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adsu.202400184 seems to indicate that the behavior in the very near infrared will be pretty good. It stands to reason that this behavior could be optimized by process improvements.
- ComputerGuru 2y ago> Nxylon (niks-uh-lon), after Nyx It seems the most straightforward spelling (and easier to pronounce by looking at it if you are taking any kind of cues from the rest of loan words in the language) would have been Nyxlon.
- YeGoblynQueenne 2y agoI read it as "N-xylon", where "ξύλον" is wood in Greek.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- JS-Sound 2y ago[flagged]
- mkl 2y agoFrom the article: "The team named and trademarked their discovery Nxylon (niks-uh-lon), after Nyx, the Greek goddess of the night, and xylon, the Greek word for wood." Not sure why they didn't call it Nyxylon.
- groby_b 2y agoLooking at the watch photographies, how is this "super-black"?
- fernly 2y agoA pity they hadn't read Gene Wolf's _Book of the New Sun_ in which the main character wears robes of "the hue fuligin, which is darker than black, admirably erases all folds, bunchings and gatherings so far as the eye is concerned, showing only a featureless dark."[1] From the Latin for soot.[0] [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fuliginous https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fuliginous [1] http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1495 http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1495
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ljsprague 2y agoDoes it rub off?
- mikewarot 2y agoThis is going to result in an awesome Applied Science video... I hope! Making this at home will be quiet interesting.