Graphene nanotubes create more wind turbines & less emissions

Developers from the UK's Trelleborg Applied Technology, which specialises in engineered material solutions, have found a way to solve this issue using graphene nanotubes (also known as single wall carbon nanotubes).

“We realise that the problem is the large radar cross section of the turbine, so if we can reduce this, we remove the clutter and solve radar interference,” Dr Adam Nevin, Innovation Lead of Trelleborg Applied Technologies, explains. “In order to reduce it, we are using single wall carbon nanotubes and making nanocomposite which absorbs over 99% of the incident radar wave to make the coated object ’stealthy’, which makes it much easier to track aircraft and observe storms”.

Along with nanotubes' ability to efficiently absorb waves, they also allow new material to be extremely thin. The developers emphasise that this material would otherwise be many centimetres thick, but they managed to reduce it down to just millimetres, thus obtaining an ultra-lightweight nanopolymer. The new absorbing material uses graphene nanotubes, produced by OCSiAl.

As Dr Adam Nevin said, the product went through a full development cycle from initial research to a scaled-up solution within only ten months only. The new absorbing material can be used in diverse product applications in telecommunications, automotive, electronic and antennae solutions, where strict regulations on electromagnetic interference and stray radio-frequency emissions apply.

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