Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Honda Motor Co. said its U.S. research unit developed a carbon-nanotube process that may lead to cheaper, smaller and more-efficient batteries, electronics and solar panels.The process produces tubes that are 1/100,000 the width of a human hair and may conduct electricity faster with less energy loss than current materials, Honda said in a statement today. Details of the research by the company’s Columbus, Ohio lab, aided by scientists at Purdue University and the University of Louisville, appear in the Oct. 2 issue of Science magazine.
The tubes are grown on the surface of microscopic metal particles, creating a material stronger than steel that conducts electricity better than copper and is as light as cotton, Honda said. Applying the research to electronics will take at least three years, Hideaki Tsuru, the project’s director at Honda Research Institute USA, said in an interview.
“Going to large-scale production is still a big challenge,” he said. “We put our eyes mostly on controlling the structure.”
Honda is Japan’s second-largest carmaker and the world’s biggest producer of motorcycles and engines. The Tokyo-based company for decades has invested in research beyond its main transportation-related businesses.
That has led to a solar-panel company in Japan; a U.S. unit to build small business jets; development of a small, humanlike robot; bio-fuel research; and home-based systems to produce hydrogen fuel and electricity from natural gas.
Honda’s U.S. headquarters is in Torrance, California.
To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Ohnsman in Los Angeles at aohnsman@bloomberg.net
Source;
No comments:
Post a Comment