The dream of flying has evolved from wood and metal to modern aircraft made of composite materials. Now, the European manufacturer Airbus and Chinese scientists have set the goal of revolutionizing aviation with nanomaterials.
"This represents the future," said Michel Tran Van, general manager of the Airbus Engineering Center in Beijing (ABEC).
"Airbus and several of China's leading scientific research institutions are combining the needs of the sector with the most advanced technologies," he added.
ABEC and China's National Center for Nanoscience and Technology recently announced the establishment of a joint laboratory in Beijing to explore the applications of nanoscience engineering in the aeronautical industry.
"We have always worked in search of light and safe transport vehicles. And we must also focus on energy conservation and environmental protection, "said the expert from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and professor at Tsinghua Fan Shoushan University.
"Compounds, also known as functional compounds or smart materials, are important in addressing these issues," Fan added.
Nanomaterials are those materials with at least a dimension of one nanometer (one billionth of a meter) in size. They are also called nano-scale materials.
If a hair has a diameter of 0.05 millimeters and is axially divided into 50,000 filaments on average, each filament has a thickness of about one nanometer.
Nanotechnology is an emerging technology that began to attract attention in the early 90s.
Over the past two decades, China has become a vital force in nano-research globally, and its achievements have been key in the development of numerous advanced technologies.
"Combining scientific research with industry is a good way to create a new generation of materials," Fan said.
"Only the industry itself knows what it really needs in the future, and the scientific research community knows where it is going," said the expert.
By Xinhua