from Hacker News

Nxylon: New super-black material made from wood

by throwaway2562 on 8/3/24, 4:06 PM with 73 comments

  • by digging on 8/7/24, 5:23 PM

    > Most surprisingly, Nxylon remains black even when coated with an alloy, such as the gold coating applied to the wood to make it electrically conductive enough to be viewed and studied using an electron microscope. This is because Nxylon’s structure inherently prevents light from escaping rather than depending on black pigments.

    I don't follow this at all. If it's coated with an alloy, Nxylon isn't on the surface of the object anymore, the alloy is. So the alloy should be reflecting light. What am I missing?

  • by oniony on 8/7/24, 9:02 AM

    This, different article, https://www.earth.com/news/new-super-black-wonder-wood-calle..., suggests the process is high-energy plasma affecting the cut ends of the basswood fibres.

  • by dbacar on 8/7/24, 10:50 AM

    "The researchers have developed prototype watches and jewelry" What kind of a research team is this, fashion? :)

  • by kingkongjaffa on 8/7/24, 11:26 AM

    What’s the chemistry at play here to achieve this?

    Does it burn “lighter” compounds away to leave dark ones behind? Does it cause a reaction to turn lighter compounds darker? I couldn’t see details of the mechanism. Which is important since presumably some mechanisms would give a hint that the process can be tried on other materials or types of wood.

    The article mentions it works on other types of wood but doesn’t explain why, or if it works on all woods.

  • by ComputerGuru on 8/7/24, 6:26 PM

    > Nxylon (niks-uh-lon), after Nyx

    It seems the most straightforward spelling (and easier to pronounce by looking at it if you are taking any kind of cues from the rest of loan words in the language) would have been Nyxlon.

  • by Hnrobert42 on 8/7/24, 12:00 PM

    The ceiling and wall tiles mentioned at the very end of the article sound really cool.

  • by ted_dunning on 8/7/24, 6:15 PM

    Sounds like a great way to build black body emission sources.

    Just panel the interior of a box with this stuff and put a hole in one wall.

    It does depend on the spectral properties a lot. Figure 3 in https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adsu.202400184 seems to indicate that the behavior in the very near infrared will be pretty good. It stands to reason that this behavior could be optimized by process improvements.

  • by mikewarot on 8/8/24, 12:00 AM

    This is going to result in an awesome Applied Science video... I hope!

    Making this at home will be quiet interesting.

  • by barrenko on 8/7/24, 11:50 AM

    Hopefully the writers of Parks & Recreation will be aware of this research when writing the second reunion show.

    https://youtu.be/pTme7k5sV-o?si=sbAYH5FAg4n4G4LS

  • by hoseja on 8/7/24, 10:04 AM

    How does it compare to the other super-black materials, the Vantablacks and the like?

  • by groby_b on 8/7/24, 8:05 PM

    Looking at the watch photographies, how is this "super-black"?

  • by fernly on 8/7/24, 9:40 PM

    A pity they hadn't read Gene Wolf's _Book of the New Sun_ in which the main character wears robes of "the hue fuligin, which is darker than black, admirably erases all folds, bunchings and gatherings so far as the eye is concerned, showing only a featureless dark."[1] From the Latin for soot.[0]

    [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fuliginous

    [1] http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1495

  • by peter_d_sherman on 8/7/24, 5:31 PM

  • by ljsprague on 8/7/24, 9:57 PM

    Does it rub off?

  • by secult on 8/7/24, 9:07 AM

    [flagged]