Berkeley Vanadium Dioxide Discovery

Actually based just on the heat conductivity it would work well as an insulation material. Insulation by purpose is meant to maintain a status quo of heat. Poor conductivity is a selling point. R-Value of insulation is literally a measurement of how much if resists conductive heat flow.

Which is why Aerogel/Pyrogel is gaining popularity in refineries, 1.5" (4 layers) of the stuff is pretty close to equal to 4-6 inches of other materials in terms of stopping heat from leaking out.

Source, actually am an insulator and have worked on piping hot enough water literally bounces off of it. Fun times.
 
Electrical Conductivity and Thermal Conductivity are two separate things. Electrical conductivity and applied voltage/current dictates how much heat a wire generates. This is independent of heat conductivity. Heat conductivity says how fast the heat can travel through the material for a given temperature. If you have two wires with equal electrical characteristics, but one has higher thermal conductivity, then both will output the same rate of heat (same kW of heat) when an equal voltage is applied and the wire with higher thermal conductivity will be, internally atleast, cooler.

NoOther said:
So I had a good conversation with our PhD of Chemistry here at work about this discovery (of which he was quite interested and read the actual scientific paper on). So I will endeavor to pass on his information about your comments and questions, but first a summary of the purpose of this discovery:

The purpose of this new material is to reduce the amount of heat generated by electricity flowing through circuits. Most importantly transistors. So the main application would be in very small electronics that are packed close together and generate a lot of heat.
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I don't know if your PhD of Chemistry is reading something different from what these (very simplified) articles say, but increased thermal insulation is not a property you want in small electronics. And thermal conductivity does not dictate how much heat a wire will generate when a current is sent through it.
 
Nolan7689 said:
Actually based just on the heat conductivity it would work well as an insulation material. Insulation by purpose is meant to maintain a status quo of heat. Poor conductivity is a selling point. R-Value of insulation is literally a measurement of how much if resists conductive heat flow.

Which is why Aerogel/Pyrogel is gaining popularity in refineries, 1.5" (4 layers) of the stuff is pretty close to equal to 4-6 inches of other materials in terms of stopping heat from leaking out.

Source, actually am an insulator and have worked on piping hot enough water literally bounces off of it. Fun times.
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Aerogel is amazing stuff. Even the unusable samples go for stupid prices the last time I looked on ebay.
 
viscountalpha said:
Aerogel is amazing stuff. Even the unusable samples go for stupid prices the last time I looked on ebay.
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Aerogel (pyrogel brand variant) is horrible shit. Full Tyvek and respirator, latex gloves underneath work gloves. If you don't wear all that you are working with a material that repels moisture exquisitely well, so well that at the end of the day your hands are dried out and water beads up on them from the silicon.

But hey. Doesn't cause cancer and is "a-ok respirable". That's what they tell us currently.

Eh. All off topic regardless though. Sorry to rant about it.
 
Tiberian said:
And this could be useful in processors, RAM, etc, if it works as I suspect it does (or should). Hell, I always thought we've had the perfect heatsink material since the mid-1970s: the same ceramic composite material used to create the Space Shuttle's heat shield tiling but of course since it's proprietary nobody has ever put it to such uses. Imagine homes layered in that kind of material that can stay a consistent temperature regardless of being in direct sunlight or not (could build homes in the hottest places on Earth if needed and nobody would suffer for it), or of course as noted above engines and other such mechanical devices where heat causes expansion even on the microscopic levels which causes more friction between moving parts even in spite of lubrication, etc.

Still one of my all-time fave videos that demonstrates just how awesome that heat tile material is (lower the volume before hitting Play, it's fairly loud):



Fascinating possibilities, without a doubt.
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Except you don't want to use an insulator for a heatsink lol. Your cpu would burn up immediately.
 
whateverer said:
Uhh, no of course you would STILL NEED a cooling system if you used this in your engine parts. The Otto cycle itself (along with friction) is the inefficient part, and that doesn't change with this material. This material just means the parts that use this don't conduct heat like a metal does, meaning you'd BETTER NOT use this inside a hot place like an engine. The entire concept of cooling an engine DEPENDS on the thermal conductivity of metal, it's the whole reason air-cooled engines work!



This material is good for cases where you want the electrical conductivity of a metal, but not the added thermal conductivity of a metal. Like say, control/LOW power wires used inside a super-cooled Cryogenic system. Like the Tokamac reactor, for instance :D

http://www.ialtenergy.com/tokamak-fusion-reactor.html
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umm, NO.

if the material was perfect and all combustion/exhaust surfaces covered, NO COOLING REQUIRED. Engines DO NOT "need" the heat moved through metal if it can be contained. A "perfect" engine would have zero heat loss and the gases allowed to expand to ambient temp. Any heat loss through the metal in the engine is a PARASITIC loss. As it is, current engines typically cannot operate at perfect combustion temperatures DUE to cooling limitations. With this material, all the waste combustion heat would stay in the gases and simply be exhausted out. Closer to, but still not, ideal combustion.

Now any sliding/rotating friction of non-combustion parts may need cooling, but that is usually done via oil splashing, or simple air. You may have to cool the oil pan and use it for cabin heat instead of coolant.
 
Rustynuts said:
umm, NO.

if the material was perfect and all combustion/exhaust surfaces covered, NO COOLING REQUIRED. Engines DO NOT "need" the heat moved through metal if it can be contained. A "perfect" engine would have zero heat loss and the gases allowed to expand to ambient temp. Any heat loss through the metal in the engine is a PARASITIC loss. As it is, current engines typically cannot operate at perfect combustion temperatures DUE to cooling limitations. With this material, all the waste combustion heat would stay in the gases and simply be exhausted out. Closer to, but still not, ideal combustion.

Now any sliding/rotating friction of non-combustion parts may need cooling, but that is usually done via oil splashing, or simple air. You may have to cool the oil pan and use it for cabin heat instead of coolant.
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With no parasitic loss you get no cabin heating. Not cool for winters :D
 
DocSavage said:
You can heat the interior with all that extra hot exhaust. I'd probably advise a heat-exchanger though.
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That would have to be after the catalytic converter then. Extra cost for the exhaust system!
 
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