Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by ASlave2Gravity 2486 days ago
What sort of applications would this be used for? I see in the article housing electronics, but isn't plastic pretty good for that? Aren't ceramics super brittle?
2 comments

Plastics don't work well in some environments, space and medical situations usually. This might make for some better (less bioreactive) and cheaper (instead of titanium) implantable devices. Plastics in space tend to have a few issues that I know of, off-gassing and UV degradation in particular.
I'm thinking the ceramics would cancel lots of the electrical noise that electronics, and electrical components, put out. You can't have a very sensitive antenna if all the components in a receiver are spewing lots of electrical signals.

Making it possible for even smaller computers.

Thinking of it... Recycling of these computers will be challenging - how do you dispose an item made from "unobtanium" ?

Crush it into sand? It is one of the hardest materials, one needs a harder material to crush something. Heat/cool to have it crumble does not work well either with ceramics.

Melting it into glass or something? Might not be practical due to extremely high temps required.

Using it as "pebble" in road/bridge construction? Not sure if concrete will be able to stick to it.