When I was in school, I used to think that the blackest substances on earth was the carbon black which is just a bit close to the blackness of a the coal , well that was then and not now.it is now something called vantablack.
The world has been evolving and as we all know that what is the cutting edge technology today will become obsolete tomorrow, examples of these are abounds not only in the technology world but in everything around us.
So what is this new substance called VANTABLACK:
WHAT IS VANTABLACK?
VANTA in the vantablack stands for Vertically Aligned Nano Tube Arrays while the black stands for the colour of the substance showing that it is black in colour and not white.
Vantablack is the registered trade mark of Surrey NanoSystems Limited, a company in the United Kingdom. Vantablack is neither paint nor a pigment like our normal convectional colours.
Vantablack just as the name implies “Nano tube arrays” is a forest of very small particles of carbon that will be deposited on the surface of the material to be coated. For those who are scientifically oriented, Nano is a prefix for 10^-9 (i.e. 0.000000001) to show how really small these particles are, 1 cm² area of a material coated with vantablack will contain approximately 1000 million nanotubes of carbon.
WHAT MAKES IT SO BLACK?
Vantablack is the holder of the world blackest artificial substance made in the Guinness world record, but how was it able to grab such a spot so quickly and easily, well the trick lies in the technology behind it.
Before anyone can see any object, light must shine on such an object and it must reflect the light to the individual so that the impression can be created in the eyes of the beholder, but in the case of vantablack, the light falling on it are trapped and reflected by the nano tubes along their length until they are literally absorbed thereby reflecting very little light for the observer to be able to see them.
The percentage of light striking it that it can reflect back is 0.036%, that’s 99.964% of the light falling on it, will be absorbed. It’s just like a black hole, if I can call it that.
Something just like this, if use to paint, except that the original vantablack can’t be used to paint pictures.
Drawing depicting the blackness of vantablack | picture credit: pixaby
USES OF VANTABLACK
Vantablack was basically developed to prevent stray lights entering the telescope and to improve the performance of infra-red cameras, since they are very good at absorbing light, it can only be grown on substance that can withstand high temperature, you can now see the reason I said it wasn’t developed for painting because paper or canvas can’t stand the heat.
It has so many uses both in the military and in our everyday life, one of such is it use in concentrating solar energy for heating, since all light trapped in the nanotube will eventually be dissipated as heat,
Another is it application in the military for camouflage, this is a natural camouflage as far as am concern because it will look pitch dark especially in the dark and I don’t think anyone will see anything coming.
WELL CAN YOU USE VANTABLACK AS AN INDIVIDUAL?
The answer to the question above is NO, you can request for a sample from the company using this link, but they won’t respond to a private mail, it has to be an organization making the request for research purposes and if you want to do that, you can order using the link here.
Also it is not a paint that is applied using brush, it has to be grown on the surface of the metal using special techniques that can be provided by the company.
But there is a variant of vantablack that can be sprayed, that is vantablack S-VIS but even this still require special treatments also, only that they are more lax than the ones for the original one.
And if you are looking at coating your car be it conventional or hybrid are like your hydrogen car with such, well that is also impossible for now because the nanotubes are not resistant to abrasion which your car is expected to face every day and it will be very expensive a cost to bear.
Although when I first came across this paint, I was playing with the thought of the night rider just like this photo.
Picture credit: pixabay
