Vantablack

[Pigeon]

Vantablack

Vantablack is a material developed by Surrey NanoSystems in the United Kingdom and is one of the darkest substances known, absorbing up to 99.96% of visible light (at 663 nm if the light is perpendicular to the material).

Etymology

The name is a compound of the acronym VANTA (Vertically aligned carbon nanotube arrays)and the color black.

Properties

Vantablack is composed of a forest of vertical tubes "grown" on a substrate using a modified chemical vapor deposition process. When light strikes Vantablack, instead of bouncing off from it, it becomes trapped and is continually deflected amongst the tubes, eventually becoming absorbed and dissipating into heat.

Vantablack was an improvement over similar substances developed at the time. Vantablack absorbs up to 99.96% of visible light and can be created at 400 °C (752 °F). NASA had previously developed a similar substance that was grown at 750 °C (1,380 °F), so it required materials to be more heat resistant than Vantablack.

The outgassing and particle fallout levels of Vantablack are low. The high levels in similar substances in the past had limited their commercial utility. Vantablack also has greater resistance to mechanical vibration, and has greater thermal stability.

Vantablack S-VIS, a sprayable paint that uses randomly-aligned carbon nanotubes and only has high absorption in the visible light band, has been exclusively licensed to Anish Kapoor's studio for artistic use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack

[Pigeon]

Fun fact about Vantablack- Because it absorbs all light, it heats up very fast. If exposed to direct sunlight, it takes in all the UV and heat and contains them, and can reach heats well over 212°F, the boiling point of water. So if you did coat the pool in that material, the water would boil as soon as the sun touched it, killing everyone swimming in it.

But that’s not all. The flash boiling of an entire pool of chlorinated water would release the chlorine as gas, which would kill everyone within a 200ft radius of the pool. And it doesn’t end there.

The release of chlorine gas combined with the heat of the black tiles would be more than sufficient to fuse the boiled hydrogen ions with the chlorine, creating an explosive reaction with the nitrogen in the air. So shortly after everyone in the pool boils and everyone around the pool dies of chlorine gas poisoning, the region would explode with the force of a small atomic bomb (8kt for a pool like those pictured above), leveling about 50 city blocks.

You’d think that would be bad enough, but get this-

Such chemical explosions expel gamma rays. Gamma rays ionize hematite, which is the mineral from which the black material mentioned is made. This creates Scopohyoscpnol, a compound known as “The Zombie Drug” because it essentially erases the brain and induces cannibalistic tendencies in its victim. It can be transmitted through saliva, infecting all who are bitten within hours.

So basically, if you did have Vantablack tiles in your pool, you would boil your friends, poison your neighbors, nuke your city, and condemn the globe to a zombie plague. But to be fair, it would look pretty cool.

As described by tumblr user: facts-i-just-made-up

[Royal]

"facts-i-just-made-up"

Seen a similar poster on Reddit.

There's some good rants out there.

[Pigeon]

I think it surfaced on reddit.