Carbon NanoTube Furnace

I am not going to get into a technical discussion regarding our Carbon NanoTube process, because, frankly, I don’t know it well enough to say anything useful. But what I do know is that “Brown gunk = Bad”.

Really, really, really bad. It was bad enough that that simple brown gunk almost caused our company to collapse. The story of our efforts to create Carbon NanoTubes has only partially been told, so far. I will tell more, over the coming weeks, when I write about this history (from my perspective) of LiftPort’s role in creating an Elevator to Space. But I thought it would be good to see something, even if that ‘thing’ was not pretty.

So, we use a Carbon Vapor Deposition technique that is, in part, modeled after the National Renewable Energy Lab’s idea of using a “hot-wire”, or a hot filament inside the production environment. This helped to control and regulate temperature – which is critical when building these things.

We had been making a small amount of CNT for over a year now… But it never ramped up to a commercial scale. It was bad enough that eventually, we had to abandon that short-term goal, and cut our losses. And it could be said, fairly, that that Brown Gunk was what started the downward spiral for LiftPort Group. We sunk everything we had, into developing that furnace, and that technique. The problem was, of course, that we didn’t have enough to begin with. It is a cliché to say that most companies are under funded when they begin. Well, if you can imagine building an Elevator to Space, and you don’t already have $1B in your checkbook, then it is a fair guess that you will run out of money, before you get very far. Well, we took out a loan for $100k, and I personally backed that loan, and used my building as collateral for additional funds. We took out these loans, because we were (I was) “certain” we had found a way to mass produce CNT – and if we could do that, then paying the loans back would be effortless, right?

And that is when the Brown Gunk entered my life… and Brown Gunk means that you can’t make CNT the way you want. You can’t make it in quantity, quality or in length… which means you can’t sell it… which means you can’t pay back your loans… which means you can’t pay your research team… And it was my choice to pay my team, instead of my mortgage. I felt that was the right thing to do.

Now, don’t get the wrong impression. I am not blaming my current problems exclusively on this. There were lots and lots and lots of other factors. And God knows that my team worked hard to solve this problem. But the truth is, we didn’t have enough money, time or people assigned to the project. In hindsight, the task I gave them was impossible – and I am the guy building an Elevator to Space – I don’t use the term “impossible” lightly. And no, it is no comfort thinking about the fact that neither Intel, nor IBM, nor anyone else, has solved the mass-production problem, yet, either.

And this Brown Gunk, in many respects was the beginning of the end – although I didn’t know it at the time.

Take care. Mjl


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Click on the Photo, and it will take you to the Flickr site. Read the comments, and the post-it notes on the photo itself.

If you have comments or questions, just post them there on the site, and i will respond.

I encourage you to look around Flickr. There are a lot of photos here:
- www.flickr.com/photos/space_elevator/col lections/72157600...

www.flickr.com/photos/space_elevator/col lections/72157600...

www.flickr.com/photos/space_elevator/col lections/72157600...

www.flickr.com/photos/space_elevator/col lections/72157600...

Also, if you have your own Elevator to Space images, you can post them to this group (must be a member of flickr, first or you can send me the photos, and i will do it):

www.flickr.com/groups/spaceelevator/

If you want to discuss other images, just make a comment.

As always, thanks for your interest.

Take care. mjl

7 photos | 273 views

items are from 08 Mar 2006.