Organically grown armor?
Armor has obviously been important for warfare for basically forever. Making the best, most protective armor is a worthwhile research goal for any military organization. I recently read an article detailing a new, organic source for high-strength armor.
From the article:
The Forest Products Laboratory of the US Forest Service has opened a US$1.7 million pilot plant for the production of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) from wood by-products materials such as wood chips and sawdust. Prepared properly, CNCs are stronger and stiffer than Kevlar or carbon fibers, so that putting CNC into composite materials results in high strength, low weight products. In addition, the cost of CNCs is less than ten percent of the cost of Kevlar fiber or carbon fiber.
This is pretty cool. Cheaper, stronger armor from a renewable source? Awesome. What I find especially cool is the possibility then of designing and growing a sheet of armor, using genetically modified bacteria or something to lay down CNCs or carbon nanotubes (which are even stronger) in the shape of the armor. You could make individualized armors that way instead of one-size-fits-all by adjusting the size and shape of the armor molds or something.
It could be cool. Maybe we’ll have armor similar to this in our story…
Nick – I mean, fictitious futuristic scientist-historian – will be posting a Science article later today. Make sure to check it out, and subscribe or like us on facebook to catch all our posts and updates.