Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Herzyr t1_iu6s541 wrote

Research funded by the army, this has a good chance that it will pop up for civilian use eventually.

So in theory they use nickel molecules to act as a conduit since it has good conductivity, so they have to tweak the composition to make it work, maybe layer it like synthetic materials like G10 and micarta?

19

Fake_William_Shatner t1_iu6vqn3 wrote

I’d say bioengineered bacteria fed along sheets of plastic would be a good way to create large swaths of cheap, conductive surfaces for buildings and roads. We need something useful to do with all the plastic we can’t recycle.

6

Herzyr t1_iu6ysyg wrote

Oh yes, that would be a lovely repurpose for plastic, I'm not sure if we have bred bacteria for this purpose but I think they have already engineered worms to eat plastic, so the bottleneck so far is a issue of scale and cost it seems.

I'd love to see this for roads but I don't think it would stand for the stress involving vehicles, maybe something for more like electronics and maybe military stuff? Both industries love to shave weight off stuff, while still being able to do their jobs with reasonable durability..

2

Debbie_snack t1_iu7o7ny wrote

> Research funded by the army

You mean by the taxpayers

The army doesn't fund shit.

5