Ad: Check out my sponsor and remove your personal information from the web at JoinDeleteMe.com/nighthawk and use code NIGHTHAWK for 20% off. DeleteMe international Plans: international.joindeleteme.com This video ended up being quite a lengthy string of experiments that does finally land on success in the end. There are a number of things I'd like to try now that I've made cooling fibers, first of all to increase the scale of production so I can test various applications for clothing. Using PLA has some great advantages for its ability to biodegrade (under the right circumstances) and also an extremely favorable emission spectra in the infrared range for radiative cooling. The fibers made in this video I think could be suitable as is for certain semi rigid clothing items like hats, but possibly are too brittle for very flexible items like shirts. The brittleness might eventually be resolved by modifications on how the fibers are processed, or by mixing the PLA with plasticizers or another more stringy plastic. Of course I also have many more things to try to increase cooling performance further! Let me know what you'd like me to try next in this series. Check the video description for a link to the complete radiative cooling series to see my other videos on this topic. - Ben
Absolut cool video!!! Have you considered to buy a used magnetic heater/stirrer for such experiments to get more homogenous mixtures? For making clothing fibers, BaSO4 is not realy ideal Barium is toxic. Gretings from Germany
It would be super cool if you made a e-paper display but the white dots are made of cooling micro spheres and the black was made of something like vanta black, so with just a voltage you could switch between heating from the sun or cooling from the radiative spheres.
@@Genghisbeard I am sitting in here thinking why he didn't put the fluid PVA mixture straight into the cotton candy machine? I believe that you'd need to modify the bowl in the machine a little for it to be successful. Instead, he added the already solid pieces of PVA into the machine and gradually crank it up to max. If it doesn't work, let's try more, right?
😅, agree. reading this and just realised at around minute 21, when he said the exact phrase. lucky me. *edit: not exactly but similar, "that is a really good sign"
fun fact, fiberglass insulation is made with basically a large heavy duty water cooled cotton candy machine, also pla pellets are significantly cheaper than the filament in bulk, and would be easier to feed
@@Outlaw_Traffic_Stopsblack things absorb visible light, which the gets turned into more heat energy that would need to be carried away by IR, conduction, or convection. Much better to reflect back as much as possible, with a mirror or at least a white color.
@@Outlaw_Traffic_Stops I think you’re probably right to use a high absorbing surface, first surface reflective, next absorb what’s left, third disperse it through condition (edit: conduction*) to the radiative cooling layer One extra layer could theoretically boost the efficacy but may also do the opposite? Haha it would have to be tested Cool idea though
@@firstmkb yeah you wouldn't want to use black for when you're wanting to make a commercial product, but just to see relative heating difference between two identical surfaces it shouldn't matter in the testing phase.... and it would make it easier to tell visually how much coating you've applied
Despite your worry of people not liking the "extended" video format, I for one enjoyed seeing more of the process and would not mind seeing more of it.
Yes. I think the youtube metrics that are most tracked and shared with creators may be skewing the perception of what is "good"; you may get less clicks on a longer video, but those of us who are actually here for you and your experiments prefer it, unlike people who are just clicking because they saw the title or thumbnail.
Not sure you're still seeing comments here but I'll give it a try. I'm writing this at the 1 hour mark, as you asked for suggestions. I work with research on fibre spinning processes, mainly "wet spinning". The cold process you're after is called "solution spinning", specifically. The idea is to extrude the solution straight into a coagulation bath, in your case water. This would also wash out the lubricant right away. But what you need is to draw, or stretch the fibres while extruding in order to orient the chains. The process you are replicating with the cotton candy machine would be "melt blowing", which is typically used for production of non-woven materials. Let me know if you have some questions regarding how to process this at a larger scale and I'll help you out.
Put my comment here for it to be higher. I got the impression that your woven fibers got yellow because the regular tap water inevitably contains some iron oxides (or rust to be simple) which precipitates on ultra thin fibers
This is what I came here to mention. I would imagine the spinnerets and curing strategy used in making Rayon is very similar to what I'd imagine would work here. (But I'm an armchair spectator in this case, so please regard this as a research thread to pull on at best.)
I'm obsessed with this whole passive cooling saga. I think it's kind of a shame you didn't happen to have any fiber artists around to bounce ideas off of for this one. Seems like you got a bit focused on recreating fiberglass when in my opinion you're basically just rediscovering the process of how we figured out how to make yarn and faux wool from polymers like polyester and acrylic. They do it by cold extruding the polymer though thread sized holes relatively high up off the ground so that by the time it falls to the ground the solvent has sufficiently evaporated and the thread is cured. Then they take those threads and spin them into yarns. You were basically half way there with the fiberglass mat technique you landed on. By the looks of the final polymer mixture I'd bet you could have done a gravity fed extrusion by just elevating a foil pan with a few holes and letting it drip out. From there you can make mats of jumbled fibers or if you're feeling real adventurous you could try spinning it into yarn. If you did manage to do that I'd be happy to test it out and make some knit or woven samples to test the passive cooling with. Just saying.
Perhaps a version of the drop spindle? Good points. I've had the best luck with a turntable (as opposed to the right angle method) for the intertwined flat matting at a variety of angles as well.
That was kind of the idea I was thinking of also. Get the tallest step ladder he has and set some kind of container up there with some pin holes at the bottom. Let it string out through the holes and hopefully by the time it got to the bottom it would have stretched out nice and thin and the solvent mostly dried out because it's so thin by that point.
This channel is definitely the most unique on TH-cam, or anywhere. No drama, just genuine curiosity mixed with a willingness to fail for the sake of working towards a goal. Please keep going.
@@iKidTutor IIRC Mythbusters pioneered the phrase "failure is always an option" and they weren't wrong. I love channels that show how science works rather than just polishing a turd for views.
I get the sentiment but "most unique" just isn't a thing. Something is either unique, or not. Two options only, there's no gradient of uniqueness. Unique doesn't mean rare or unusual, it means "one of a kind".
you call your process "semi scientific" but testing your hypotheses, failing, and trying again is as pure of science as it can get. just because you're not using fancy equipment with very fine control over experimental conditions in a lab doesn't mean you're not being scientifically rigorous. this channel has really reconnected me to my love of science, so thank you and please keep going!
Long time 3d printer user here. That sweet candy smell and that brown "Carmel" you suspected was from the candy machine is exactly what burning PLA smells like and does when it's over heated.
I love hearing the chuckle of a patient man when he faces a way NOT to accomplish his goals. I love how you don't pitch fits when something doesn't go right. Good job sticking with it.
I was working a very boring job in a factory, so during free time I have accidentally created spiderweb shooting machine using compressed air and T pneumatic fitting. It was super simple: I have dissolved PMMA in acetone, Then I got air gun for blowing air with 6mm nozzle. Connect T fitting to the nozzle and perpendicular to nozzle connect hose to plastic in solution. This makes vacuum by venturi effect and sucks the dissolved plastic. The effect is, that the solvent evaporates super quickly and you shoot out fibers. Because the air is pressurized to about 7 bars, it shoots the fibers long distances, so this may not be best approach for your application.
I thought of the backyard scientist's video on a cotton candy gun, and good to hear it works with dissolved plastic as well as molten sugar. Seems the venturi effect is very important in this process, probably to slowly accelerate the fluid and prevent disintegration or clumping.
As someone who lives on the sweltering Gulf Coast, where the humidity is so high that sweat doesn't evaporate, I love, love, love your alternative cooling series! AND you're doing humanity a huge favor by making it freely public knowledge. Thank you so much, sir!
I`ve been trying to power my tiny air conditioner safely from solar for two years. I just ordered a very high quality Victron charger to test. If it works by next summer, at least on sunny days, I should be able to have "free" air conditioning from 10am until about 10pm on very hot days or I can save the charge at 4pm when the sun goes behind the horrible pine trees, wait until it cools at night, and have it when I sleep. That`s the hurricane plan. It has only cost me about 4000 bucks so far....
@baneverything5580 you know they make solar powered mini split ac right? They already did the work for you. Pretty sure they cost about what you spent.
@@baneverything5580 There are quite a few different solar powered mini split kits, from $1k-$4k. Mini splits are definitely the way to go for solar, since they are monumentally more energy efficient than standard ACs.
Half a century ago I was a materials technologist in r. And d . This is what life was like on projects. Mostly just graft, with ups, downs , and occasionally wow , we made it !!
I have two ideas. First, I saw a video from The Thought Emporium on making plastic fibre from milk. The fact that it’s milk is not important here, it’s the machine he used to make the fibers that’s important. I think you could use a similar setup to make some very long and thin fibers from your solution. Just use regular water and isopropyl instead of the chemicals he used to treat and clean the fibre since you don’t need it for the process you use. You could make a version of it that gives it a very long time for the fibre to dry out from the water bath if you start out by threading the machine with regular yarn/string first since the slime like nature of the solution gives me confidence that it would stick to the yarn and be able to get pulled into a fibre by it. This would allow you to thread a machine with a very long run time without having to guide the fibre through it as it grows. Second, I think you may be able to get a clump free solution if you dissolve the PEO in a solution first before mixing it in. I think it clumps up because it has difficulty dissolving into a solution that is already saturated. Also as a side note while PLA can decompose into safe chemicals, it has to be industrially composted in a specific way for that to happen. If you just throw your PLA clothes into nature they won’t decompose as you’re expecting. They’ll stick around for a very long time. I still think that PLA is a very viable option as it’s much more available than other plastics, including ones that do actually decompose on their own. But don’t give people the impression that it’ll just decompose if you throw it away like you did in the beginning of the video.
genuinely , thank you for showing us the whole process, including the messy bits and the screw ups and going over what you *think* went wrong, how you are changing your methods, and their results, it is a much better representation of a scientific method, that more people need to see
Some thoughts: 1) A magnetic stirring machine will save your sanity and time. 2a) Pour the "goo" mixture through a "pasta roller" to make large sheets rather than fibres 2b) Maybe a t-shirt "screen print" setup would allow you to layer thin sheets 3) Turn the "goo" mixture back into PLA strands and 3D print them. 4) Spin the fibres cold individually like nylon thread
Yeah... I was getting the impression that there were specific restraints/restrictions he was imposing on himself/his process for the purpose of content? 🤷 He sorta implied he was trying to make threads so as to weave fabric 🤔 but then used the cc machine which would only ever produce a felting situation...🤔 A spindle would have served better than the cc machine it think 😄
@@animeaunty I don't think he's intentionally restricting himself at all. There's no roadmap to invention, and no one can think of everything, or know all of what already exists. As he said, that's a big part of why the comments section exists. What we see in the video is simply the direction that he saw to go without the comments that come later.
@@aaronduerksen1378 I get the impression that he restricts himself to ingredients and techniques that are accessible to viewers to make it as easy as possible to replicate results.
@animeaunty if he could dial in the speed it gets flung out and the extraction rate he could very well spin it into some kind of thread as it comes out as a bunch of long loose fibers
Hey Ben, and to anyone else that follows his example of paint spraying at the 41 minute mark; quick tip to fix your problem. With HVLP spray jets like that, and similar, the “tips” that protrude in front of the nozzle are directional air jets that shape the fan pattern of the spray. They should be parallel to the intended spray direction. In this example, you were spraying left-to-right-to-left; so you want those tips to be oriented left to right (or horizontal) of the nozzle - NOT up and down (or vertical). As you had the nozzle configured at the 41minute mark, the appropriate application direction would have been moving your spray pattern top-to-bottom-to-top for a much finer and even coating. Hope this helps ya Ben and anyone else that wants to follow along! As always thanks for the great content!
Yeah, the pattern looked too narrow also, painters usually overlap 50% on each pass, so that would make getting a consistent coat easier with it not being so visible going on. I would also apply a coat side to side, then one up and down to even it out. I used the cheap Harbor Freight gun and thinned Behr paint on my DIY kitchen cabinets and they came out like glass!
@@brianmi40 I’m not an expert on the application process; haven’t attempted it either. However, IIRC, Ben’s application process is similar to the process that Tech Ingredients also taught over on their channel. Left to right, up and down are fine; however, what is considered the “best” way at the moment is attempting to keep the coat thickness similar/uniform, but the application direction randomized, and the application layering thin. This is not a process (and I may be wrong on Ben’s specific use case) that you want a heavy, blended, smooth-like-glass result. The particulates that each channel are using in order to achieve the sub-ambient temperature goal need to be applied similarly to snow fall. The particulates will enhance the desired effect by stacking (during spray application) in a non-uniform way, and the thinner each application layer the better chance you have of achieving that result; as the solvent can flash quicker and the blending of particulates into a semi-uniform structure is minimized. All of that takes time and patience; I think Tech Ingredients did 15 total layers - but it has been quite a while since I have watched their video on it; may be more or less than 15.
SUPER cool (no pun intended), that you publish a "failed" experiment. That failure just put you one step closer to success. Kudos for transparency and help everyone see that failing is ok.
Lots of transparency and lots of even cooler reflection (puns fully intended)! But yeah, seeing the messy process of trying different things and documenting your results to develop a technology makes it much easier to appreciate how one would acquire and use these skills to solve other problems, rather than just seeing someone accomplish a feat with no context and feeling like you couldn't do the same.
Yes, please do keep making long-form videos; I really don't like when TH-cam scientists and engineers (I'm not using this expression derogatorily) cut out or greatly simplify the problems, mistakes, and dead ends of their journeys. Going through your reasonig is quite enlightening. Thank you!
1:31:28 no, thank you!!! The fact that you include all your optimism, followed by the failures, reflections, and irritations! It's so good! Many times we don't see "how the sausage is made" and are just presented with the results, but you've gone above and beyond to demonstrate why the process matters and why knowing that it took to get there is important!!!
To me it was mildly annoying, but only because I was expecting it to be a short video and the title said success, then got to see all the failures. An early disclaimer would have made me skip to the end result. Very cool work though! Congrats!
1:28:47 "We are _at_ ambient temperature. That means this has to be cooling -- _actively cooling_ -- the heat that is coming off of it, in order to maintain that temperature." You continue to blow my mind, good sir. Your zeal and joy are equal parts infectious and inspirational. Congratulations for making a few legitimately grand strides in advancing the techniques and technology. I am now going to be daydreaming of some day buying a jacket woven from RadSky fabric!
I have enjoyed and learned a lot from your "short" videos, this longer format showing more of your process and how you've learned what you're showing is even better! One of the main reasons I keep coming back to creators such as you is because of the amount of information presented, and this longer format brings so much more information that is very valuable to me! NileRed is another example of a creator that uses a similar content formula that greatly boosts the information density. Thank you for going in this direction in this here video, and I hope you create more longer videos in the future showing your full project process. I love the practical applications of your projects, this is citizen science at it's best! Cheers! 8-)
Man, I just love your videos. I've met many Phd's who aren't even half the scientist that you are. Your drive and enthusiasm while experimenting in your garage is what makes a good scientist. Not the frequency at which you can publish half arsed bread-crumb papers. Although sadly, academia would disagree with me there. Anyways, congrats on your achievement!
@@hippie-io7225 I wouldn't agree that most academia is the last source of good information. My main problem with academia is the pace things get done. For an experiment like this, you'd probably need to write up multiple proposals, create a robust schedule, and get a budget approved before even starting experimentation. It gets to the point where an experiment that could be done with household chemicals in a backyard over the span of a week ends up taking over a year.
I see a lot of comments about electrospinning and I just want to caution that it is extremely slow compared to melt spinning and so probably not viable for making textiles. Also, PLA does undergo hydrolytic degradation (degradation by water). its slow, but if this is for clothing i think it may not survive washing, and of course washing could affect the microstructure as well. PLA is also a semicystalline polymer and that means that its mechanical properties will depend on its temperature "history". You can tune (or ruin) the mechanical properties by exposing it to different heating/cooling/annealing cycles. (Also PEO is another name for PEG if you/others are trying to source it. Its available in a huge range of molecular weights as well, giving another variable to play with)
As a correction, whomever is calling PEO the same as PEG doesn't understand the chemistry. PEG is Polyethylene Glycol. It is actually, chemically speaking- a Hydrogel, not a solid, nor semi-crystalline or phase-change material like PLA. it also has much smaller chains, most of the formulations used for 3D printing avg around 4000-6000 mol. If you were to substitute one for the other you would get vastly different results. From a chemical standpoint is has more in common with latex paint, than a plastic. It needs a much smaller chain, because the more chains there are the easier it is to bind with other materials- take "Rubber Cement" for instance, although it doesn't form very strong bonds, it can bond to virtually anything- if you need a work surface that it cant stick to, it must be impervious; meaning that it cannot bond to it at a molecular level. Silicone sealant & molds display this ability well also. PEO- on the other hand, (Polyethylene Oxide) means there is an oxide reaction with oxygen, as a result it sticks to itself very well, but usually creates a barrier between it & other materials, even similar ones. Most of the time it exhibits properties like a bowden tube, where you can melt the polymer inside it, but the surfaces physically repel each other. A really good example of this are those filament mergers that let you combine the end of a short roll with a new one. Most use either PEO or another material with similar properties. To be fair, there are 3D printers that print with PEO, but ONLY in a Aqueous gel form & it is extremely molecularity dense (approx. 900,000 moles, many times more dense than NHIL made in this vid) The next most common use of PEO is as a low/non-adhesive layer on build plates. It's suitable for PLA, TPU, and PETG filament. It also has the unique property of if it is coated in a pattern & allowed to crystallize, it will impart that same crystalline structure & pattern to the print on top of it. It's how you get those novelty holographic color or light bending effects on the surface of a print touching the PEO bed. Most ppl are probably more familiar with PEI- (Polyetherimide) as it's the most common bed coating material, because of it's great adherence for nearly all materials to at least some extent.
@@elvendragonhammer5433 Thank you, sir! I am more acquainted with the glycol, so that clears a lot up for me personally. The Bowden tube example - very easy to visualize - and instructive.
I feel emotion between your laughs after not achieving what and trying again and again and at the end hard work payoff, I really connect to your videos thanks for not doing what every other channels do.
I think it is rather off putting. You do WANT our support, whether it's send money or like, comment, share, and subscribe. I mean I don't know exactly how TH-camrs get paid, but have heard the biggest factor is number of subscribers times the number of views. Likes and comments help move videos up the ladder on what pops up as suggestions. Shares get more people to come watch the video (^ $ views) and possibly new subscribers (^ $). It's all support, even if not money sent directly. But yeah pateron, is guaranteed money, like a set budget. Not subjected to money that varies from sponsors or ads or TH-cam rule changes.
I’m about an hour and 11 minutes into the video, so I’m not sure if you address this, but just a thought: After letting the PLA/PEO mixture fully dry, I would try running it through a grinder of some form (coffee grinder, mortar & pestle, etc) to get a semi-uniform particle size, if it is dry enough to do so. I believe one of the issues you came across with using the cotton candy machine is the fact that the PLA/PEO you used was in different sized chunks, reducing the efficiency of the heating element and not letting it draw itself into long fibers when melting. The sugar used to make cotton candy is typically a uniform particle size, allowing it to heat/melt evenly and combine into fibers, and I believe the same is true when plastic is recycled and draw into fiber as well. ETA: Reducing the surface area may also allow a more efficient and even heat, lowering the amount of heat/energy & time needed to melt the material (same principle as trying to light a chunk of wood on fire vs fine tinder, and snow melting faster compared to a chunk of ice)
This video breaks the barrier that sometimes exists in formal science. It is important because it shows that it is possible, by turning things around, to make or recreate ideas and dreams. Thanks for another interesting video..!
What a project! Will you blame me if I say I was excited every time you've encountered a failure? Every time you've hit a snag you've had multiple cool ideas to fix or improve the process. At the end of the video, there are SO many unexplored paths left hanging. Dropping the plastic into water, automating the raking process, experimenting with the amounts of the PEO (it's obvious you couldn't risk it with the time constraints), experimenting with cold spinning with the cotton candy machine, and so many more... There's at least a few video's worth of ideas inside this one, and with how it's going, there will be probably even more ideas in the consequent videos. Excited to see them!
@@constantineandriyanov8200 most importantly, it's ABSOLUTELY worth it!! You are definitely on to something with this one. I'd say run with it for as long as it takes.
I'm very early days of fiber optic production, it was necessary to make a rig that was nine stories tall. At the top was an oven that would heat a crucible that had a hole in its bottom. Once the material was molten they would remove the plug from the bottom and a single drop would plummet the entire Nine Stories carrying with it a strand. By the time it got to the bottom it had cooled and annealed and could be wound on a spool.
Today, as I'm sure you know, it's extruded to have the coating around it. Which is what I think should be done here. Simply pass nylon thread through a bath of bubble filled material, then pull it through a hole of the desired final diameter size (which is similar to what a 3D filament extruder does, to make filament for 3D printers from plastic that is melted and pushed out the hole, pulled through a cooling water bath, then spooled).
Yeah, the plant in Wilmington is crazy. I installed a weird crane thingy for handling soot sticks (the pure silica preforms they make) that my company made, and they have SO much weird stuff. The whole time I was working I kept getting distracted by one of the soot stick making machines, thing looked like something out of a sci-fi movie with a spinning core getting blasted by fire.
This video was not even remotely boring, i didn't even notice the 1.5 hours go by! The editor did a good job 👍👍👍 I can't say I'm not a little bit frustrated you never tried to cold spin the liquid with the cotton candy machine! It seemed like the perfect fit, but all other commenters suggested much better options, so they should be worth exploring next time. Another thing I'd love to mention is that PLA loves taking in water and becoming brittle when cold as well as foaming when hot/printed, so keep it dry when storing for future tests to rule out variables. However since you want foam you might also want to look into light weight pla which foams up with heating (intentionally 😁)
Dude, I made a sighed as I saw how long your video is upon a first watch, but once I start I literally can't stop. The thirst for curiosity is stronger than ever. You are like the perfect teacher, because you are able to explain and do demos at the same time, so it's very engaging and there's is no point where I thought the pacing was slow. Keep up the great work!
Loved that you included the whole process! This is how real science gets done. Electrospinning could be an option for producing ultra-reflective fibers, but it is just so slow lol. There are plenty of cool fiber forming process that might work for this application like Wet Spinning, or immersion rotary jet spinning
that's one expertly chosen hook for the video. if i wasn't sure about watching a 1.5 hour video before your very first sentence, i certainly was _after_ your first sentence.
spending hours of testing, analyzing, explaining, and theorizing is exactly the reason you got a new sub. Sure, I love seeing the final product and everything together, but the journey is more important than the destination. Especially the setbacks, it's only failure if something wasn't learned from the experiment.
@@fritzwilhelm8258 nice, you're the first I know, now, that is a fan. Oh, how about some people talk SOOO Slow you gotta check to see if it's still on 2x speed, AND IT IS!!. That ever happened to you? I'm looking at you The Quartering 😅
You could take your sprayer to a high spot (tall ladder, roof, etc...) and spray the solution into the air to create fibers. IIRC that's how fiberglass was accidentally discovered
Long time fan of your channel. i've also been showing my new born your videos as educational content. I wanted to comment to say that i work with a construction company and i was really interested in this series for the applications in our projects. This particularly caught my eye for uniforms for the workers. Not only could it function similar to hi-vis materials for safety, if clothing could provide a passive cooling effect, them you could save lives with this. I would love to have a conversation with you about this.
An hour and a half! Omg yes. I got scared after you were done playing with the cotton candy, that we had already gone a third of the video. Super happy to see over an hour left. This series has been super fascinating
When I saw the result of raking the pla across the bottom of that baking pan, my first thought was "that looks like the mesh used for drywall repairs." All we need now is radiative cooling plaster to slap atop the radiative cooling mesh
With my mind half cleared after watching other random videos, and half grinding around in the background, I started to wonder. "what if that thicker radiative fiber mix were either spread atop of, or squished down by, drywall mesh or window mosquito mesh? After that test, what if it were squished between two layers of the same or differing meshes?"
About the paint gun job, you are painting without flatening the spayed jet of paint. The little "nipples" (sorry i'm french i don't know the exact terms) on the head of the gun, which you can rotate, have (when set properly) air going through them that help to flatten the paint coming out the middle of the head. That way you can paint evenly instead of have a small round dot of paint going out. They must be horizontal in order to flatten the paint from left to right and have a wide flat jet of paint going out of the gun, this way you paint from left to right (or vice versa), if you rotate the nipples (put them vertical), they flatten the spray horizontaly and you can paint from top to bottom. Use the knob on the back on the gun to adjust the air flow through the nipples.
@Paratyphi, good comment and expression in your non-native language. ‘Nozzle’ or ‘tip’ are appropriate English terms for the exit point. ‘Tabs’ are the exterior leverage point used to rotate the adjusting ring to change the spray pattern.
Can I just say how much I fucking love this community that you fostered, The comment sections are just FILLED with information, it's insane People bouncing around ideas with eo, talking to eo about spinning methods, it's crazy how many fields of research you've cultivated to be in this community
As for spinning your fibers... Sewing machines have a rotating peg on top for loading bobbins. Something like that is what you need. Put together a sideways drum and variable speed motor with pedal; place the beaker in front. Use a stir stick to affix one strand to the drum. Slowly start spooling as to maintain tension. That'd be my recommendation as a longtime fiber artist.
1:11:43 When I saw you initially pulling the strands on the last attempt it reminded me of pulling sugar for patisserie. Many sugar artisans pull fine strands by hand making our own candy floss, sometimes with the help of a heat lamp. You can check Chinese cotton candy makers for better demonstrations than I could ever do. It would eliminate the browning in the cotton candy machine and you could immediately set it in solution for drying. Fantastic video!
Sir, you are beyond scientific, a true scientist. The scientific spirit is in you for sure. I truly enjoy the bloopers and mistakes, not only for the motivation it could give those failing, but because it shows your honesty. Which allows trust to build between you and the audience. Keep up the great work, and congratulations on your discoveries. 🤝
You have no idea, I will watch an eight hour video if it’s interesting like this. I’ll put it on while I sleep at night, you get views and engagement, I get to sleep while listening to something super interesting it’s a win win
One of the things I appreciate about your channel is that you include it in your videos when something doesn’t work out, and then explore why not and possible alternative solutions. It’s so easy on TH-cam to endlessly truncate one’s work, whether to hide errors or to make something simple and more consumable at the cost of utility like those “cooking videos” that don’t actually list measurements, but you seem to care about what you do enough that you want to share it authentically. I guess I can’t really read your motivations since I don’t know you, but I still wanted to let you know I think it’s cool.
I said it about your opal video, I'll say it again, this is not science, you are clearly a wizard. Yet another absolutely awesome video, and yes watching the whole process is genuinely fascinating and not at all boring. The background stuff is as much a part of it as the rest, loving the videos and genuinely intrigued as to how it carries on progressing. Great work.
Ben, great video. Glad for the longer format. Industrially, "cotton candy" polymers are known as dry spinning, while the fibers gathered in the water outside your beaker are wet spinning. The latter works through coagulation (requires a higher solvent/polymer ratio) but is suited for very thin fibers. It could be tested, as you need to washing it anyway.
I teach high school English. My students rarely see the process of working through failure to achieve success. Many have given up on writing because they have not had concrete examples of how the PROCESS of “failures” leads to success. Thanks for sharing the steps you had to work through in order to land at success. I’m excited to see where this goes!
It was really nice to see the failure along the way. As a perfectionist, I tend to stop and/or redo everything, when the results aren't what I want. Knowing that failure can lead to better results than expected, is one thing. Seeing it in action, is way more motivating. I like your attitude when experimenting and how you laugh off obstacles in your way. I had watched a few of your videos in the past but this one is the one that earned my sub. Thank you
The "crackel" effect may be a consequence of painting one paint on top of another. Painting layers with two specificly different types of paint is how the cracle effect is purposly achieved in effect painting kits. I'm not sure of the science between the two paints that causes the crackle, but you may have accidentally hit the dweet spot there.
Idea, why not take the solvent solution and put that in the cotton candy machine without the heating? the heating is to melt the plastic into a liquid which it already is, and the heating seems to be reducing reflectivity. and if its dripping still after its spun you could try slanting the walls or another catching mechanism.
A major benefit of having a passive cooling fabric is that you can say fold it up and pack it away - making it potentially easier to have something you can put out and then put away again. This would be fantastic as an umbrella for example. Amazing work!
You can also seal the drum of the cotton candy machine with a plexiglass and feed an inert gas like nitrogen into it to prevent fibers from oxidation. Using an inert gas that is heavier than the air is preferred since you have to lift the lid and pour the material into the hot chamber.
such a cool video! Personally i love the longer format. Seeing the challenges along the way, the real time problem solving and perseverance is really inspiring as a DIYer myself.
Look into polymer fiber drawing rather than spinning. Leaking the solvent out of a tiny hole you can allow it to dry in the air enough to loop it around rollers, so it can be drawn thru a bath of water then spooled up using a small motor with adjustable rmp. Im sure it would be tricky but you could use this to draw very long fibers and have them continually processed as they are being drawn, air dryed and spooled for use.
There is another method that might be worth investigating. Back in college I was doing research making batteries, and we were producing nanofiber mats with a base matrix of Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) using an electrospinner. Working principal is you have a high negative voltage going to a needle on a syringe with your solution. This ejects it out towards a spinning drum with a high positive voltage, and the material jumps the gap and latches on, producing your mat. I was using 400 rpm on the drum, with a voltage of -2 kV and 25 kV on the syringe and foil. The solution was PAN + other additives with DMF as the solvent. The additives here were battery related so they can be ignored, but it was mainly 1g PAN to 12g DMF. Once ejected it goes solid and forms the mat. The mats were quite tough and fabric like, but it did heavily depend on how long you spun for your end thickness. We had both a commercial machine and one we diy'd prior to getting said commercial one, so it should be possible to diy at home. PLA should also work instead of PAN, so your solution would only need to be made more liquid and it should be able to work.
Interesting, reminds me of how powder coating works via corona charging to electrostatically apply the material. The drawback of PLA is that it is not UV resistant, so nylon would be better. What's new to me in all this is that simply micro-bubbles in clear material induce high reflectivity. Seems almost unimaginable someone didn't start making nylon thread with a controlled amount of such bubbles in a target diameter to retain tensile strength... seems like a huge and relatively in reach patent for someone to pursue and rock the fabric world for summer outdoor garments.
@@brianmi40 Hmm, maybe a core of solid nylon (or whatever the fibre is made out of) and a 'sheath' of the micro-foamed stuff, to preserve the fibre's strength while having a high density of the bubbles exposed to the surface?
@@05Matz I'm thinking that's the easiest to make, but for mass commercial production, seems like they just develop the means to add the micro bubbles into the nylon itself.
I absolutely love you taking us along for the ride. The longer the ride the more knowledge I can absorb. Your long videos are kickass. LOL Thank you for the time and effort you put in.
My friends ask me when I have the time to watch an hour and a half video. I ask when they have time to watch a football game and if they learned anything useful while watching. Bless you for sharing your knowledge. Knowledge is the most valuable thing I have. Watching these videos adds to my wealth. Great job. Thanks.
@@justinw1765 If this particular styrofoam were transparent to IR, wouldn't we then be able to see through it to the grass beneath in the FLIR pictures? In much the same way that we can easily see through the transparent plastic film. However, the edges of the styrofoam are still crisp in the imagery, suggesting no transparency.
Thanks for keeping in the disappointments and failures, it really is part of the process and seeing that others also deal with it is important I think, at least for my confidence, lol I am interested in replicating such cooling methods in my off-grid forest dwelling, iteration is hard and it's good to know the gotchas
A good method for drawing out plastic fibers is called elctro spinning. You would need to extrude them into an electrostatic field, which would draw the fibers out to thin strands. Not sure how expensive it would be to buy/make such a spinner. Looking forward to seeing your future paint and fiber results!
Couldn't help myself noticing the similarities between this new style of video and NileRed's format. Crazy premise, multiple snags, multiple new ideas and solutions to fix those snags, time and material stakes, you've got it all! And talking about Nigel, it really looked like many of the problems you've encountered could be solved or simplified by his expertise or equipment. I'm not talking about collab, of course (that's obviously just wishful thinking), but contacting him on some of the issues could really speed up the further project endeavors, and chemist's perspective seems very valuable to me when working with polymers. NileRed seems to be an active part of american creator youtube community, so contacting him seems like something realistic? Just my thoughts though, of course, but it might be something worth looking into.
This is hands down my favorite video you've done - the failures, lesson in perseverance, the genuine joy at the success... this one is as inspirational as it is informational. we can truly appreciate not just how cool (pun intended) the end product is, but that it is an absolute triumph. huge grins all around watching you make that crude gauze with the crude rake tool.
@NightHawkInLight I have been watching your videos for so many years. I'm currently not in a position to donate, but I just want to say thank you as a long-time viewer. Thank you so much for your hard work and dedication!
Well, since you like comments :) - Your videos are a great help to me, not just because they're entertaining and educational, but they also give me hope. Climate change and its effects give me a lot of anxiety, but seeing people like you and Robert Murray-Smith, not just crank out things like radiative cooling paint, home-made wind turbines, and graphene, but then give away recipes that anyone with a grocery store in town could make? That makes me feel like we might just make it - and possibly have some fun while we're at it. Thanks man :)
Have you heard of electrospinning. It is not really a process that will give you lots of fibers but it produces nanofibers which might be helpful for the radiative cooling.
I have, I tried it during a live stream but haven't gotten it working right yet. There's another person with a great video on the subject in his attempts to make an artificial heart valve
@@Nighthawkinlight sir, I've owned and ran a certain hot glue gun this one had a hook up for compressed air and blasting the air all around glue nozzle shot it out like a spider web and bet ur boots that's exactly what it's sold for n what I did with it. Now if we infuse those glue sticks with some zeolite? Wich I also found dirt dirt dirt cheap as its sold as stall refresher for a horse. Lmk what ya think and glue gun bought at Walmart obviously before Halloween lmk.
Consider spinning the slurry+solvent without a basin to catch. Since the slurry makes great fibers to begin with, something like a peanut butter jar with a few tiny holes, mounted to a handheld drill, spun in free air would create the fibers at a height, so fine that the solvent can flash off before they hit the ground. Sauce: This is how movie special fx make cobwebs on sets - they have a spinnydrum full of that sets before they land, leaving drooping fluff everywhere.
Hot glue and Fiberfill from the sewing world is what we use most of the time. For most of the stuff coming into contact with actors cotton candy is quite popular however you need bigger strands to have the camera "see" it. Most hate it, messy as heck. Kinda like "snow" being plastic regrind. That plastic still falls out of some soundstage soundproofing and rafters after getting blown everywhere by the Ritters (fans) on set. UGH...
It may we worth trying the solvent goop in your cotton candy spinner with the heater off or very low. You'd probably have to experiment with the solvent content a bit to get a good balance of viscosity and drying speed. If need be you may need to remove the bowl so the fibers have more time to dry before they hit the floor.
Dude I love watching these videos. The creative process and problem solving is super inspirational. I totally want to try your paint and waterproofing recipes myself. After watching this I went out and bought a bucket, a pump, a fan, and a heat exchange to mess with using water as a thermal battery to cool my apartment during the day. Night and day temps swing like 40F where I'm at. Thanks for the inspiration! Keep them coming!
To make ultra thin polyester fibres, they use supersonic air nozzles to stretch the extruded fibre without mechanical contact. It would be interesting to pass that gelatinous substance through this process.
The added spacers to the cotton candy machine seem like they are counter productive. One would think that a smaller opening would produce more fibers as even before the spacers were added, you had chuncks of material flinging out. Also a possible easier solution to your drawn out fiber would be the use of a pendulum. It would aid in constant fiber size as well as ease of creating fiber mats. They would end up with a structure similar to that of a spirograph pattern.
Holy cow, Christmas came early! My inner nerd jumped for joy when I saw that there's 93 whole minutes of glorious fun nerdy goodness from this channel. It's a full length movie! I like! Time to get some popcorn. By the way, might I suggest uploading two versions of this video and possibly the future big projects you make? One full length version with all your trials and errors like this one for fans like me with a lot of time to watch these and enjoy seeing your crazy approaches even if they don't necessarily work out, thereby enjoying the whole process. And one condensed version for your average youtube viewer who just has a few minutes to watch a short and informative youtube video before moving on. That way there's the best of both worlds and it would increase your upload count and possibly increase more traffic for your channel. Just a thought. I love these videos. Stay awesome, Ben 👍
Please, oh please combine radiative cooling with a Stirling Engine! With the hot cylinder painted black and the cold one painted with your best radiative cooling compounds. This should be awesome - and should be an interesting test for your compounds.
I like the way you are thinking. But, note that there is a much easier way to get a heat gradient for running a solar-powered sterling engine: a parabolic mirror.
I don't know how the hell I ended up on this video and have zero chemistry knowledge, but that was awesome! I'm infinitely curious about solving obscure problems and so was captivated from start to finish. Love your enthusiasm and I wanted to high five you at the end when you nailed it! A great pay off for all the sweat. Thanks for sharing ☺️👍
I think your problem with this will be PLA and UV exposure. While you might achieve a result that works when testing, UV light will degrade, embrittle, and discolor the PLA with time, likely causing it to lose it's cooling ability. This is likely why the original authors went with a more exotic plastic. Also, while PLA is *technically* biodegradable. In practice, it isn't. It will likely take tens of decades, or hundreds of years for PLA to properly degrade. You do have to worry about the microplastics you generate in this process. Even if PLA is technically inert and safe to eat, your body cannot digest it and will slowly bioaccumulate more over time. I think a cooler, hah, approach might be to find a way to add in dense nanofoam to vinyl siding when it's extruded. That way you are using an already outdoor tested polymer, and you aren't creating microplastics by making it through fibers. Dealing with making PVC at home would likely not be for the faint of heart though... You wouldn't be able to make clothes out of it, but I think making clothes out of synthetic plastics at all is proving more and more every day to be a horrible idea in general. The sythetic fibers in clothes rub together as we move causing them to shed microplastics that end up in our food, our lungs, our bodies, and the environment.
PLA is poly lactic acid, it depolymerizes into lactic acid, and it's soluble in water. It's like litterally the most biodegradable polymer out there besides cellulose ironic we don't look at wood as litter but cellulose is litterally plastic polymer litter, there just happens to be micro organisms that have evolved to break it down. Also kinda wild suggesting PVC over PLA when considering environmental factors PVC is so so much worse from production, to disposal. I agree that PLA would not hold up to outdoor use though.
@@HerbaMachina Yes, no organisms, including us, can break it down currently. Just because wood is a polymer, and PLA is a polymer doesn't mean PLA is safe. Chemically, yes it's fine, but as a microplastic within the body it is unknown what health affects it has. But most studies suggest it isn't great, and the effects are worse the smaller the particles get. For example, carbon is safe in the body. You can eat it just fine. But carbon fiber and carbon nanotubes are *very* unhealthy to breathe in or eat. It's important to take into account more than just the chemical properties of something when considering it to be safe for humans or the environment. PVC is more harmful for manufacture and disposal, but as siding or roof tiles it would undergo much less wear, and again would not break down in UV like PLA does. It would last decades outside without being an environmental hazard, and would not need to be removed or replaced nearly as often as something made from PLA, which might last a weeks or months...
I agree, and was thinking of UV degradation and yellowing as well. (Whereas acrylic is quite resistant to UV degradation). As far as biodegradability, I'm guessing that there are probably ways to speed up the process, such as mixing it into a compost pile. The extra heat, microbes, and moisture present might help to break it down faster, while minimizing microplastics dispersal? As there are already organisms developing an ability to break down more petrol-oil based plastics, I'm guessing for this, it would be even easier for microbes to adapt to digest and utilize it as a food source since it is already closer to a natural/bio type compound (lactic acid). I think ultimately for the average DIY'er, the paints will be more of a useful avenue of experimentation.
Everywhere people and agencies are installing shade sails, those sails need to be radiative cooling-treated. Imagine if the shade they provided wasn't just shade, but the sail itself generated a gentle draft of cool ( or at least, somewhat less hot than ambient) air falling from their surface?
Agreed. And Technology Connections recently did a cool video on the old "technology" of window awnings and other coverings to reduce Solar heat gain into houses. So having the surface of these covered in some kind of IR-sky window emissive-sun reflecting coating could be helpful.
There are two thing I would try with cold fibers: 1) Adding an elasticizer of some sort could help reduce the number of fibers that break when folded. I don't think they could be used for anything non-stationary in their current state. I could be wrong but that's the feeling I got from the video 2) An idea for cold spinning them. The name of the material escapes me at the moment but there is a form of plastic that is commonly made as a chemistry experiment. It is formed when two liquids come into contact and, more importantly for this, the solvent evaporates fast enough in the air so you can just spool it up on a glass rod as a yarn of sorts. I wonder if you could use the solution while its being heated and draw out fibers (something like the rake idea you tried) while spooling them. The solvent doesn't seem to evaporate fast enough for this but if the solution was hot and you introduced forced airflow over the fibers while they are in the air it **might** just work. Regardless this was a fascinating watch. Thank you for all of the interesting videos you posted over the years and I'm glad you found an editor to make your job at least a bit less time consuming
I never really comment, but long time fan - gotta say I'm a big fan of this format where you take us through the trial and error - I think that's not only full of great information but also gives a sense of how to address a problem when you come across it - I find it insightful and interesting. As always, a great video covering a very interesting topic
@@recklessroges Maybe, but visible light and UV light have different properties and reactions. It reflects visible light well, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will reflect the higher energy UV light. It is primarily the UV light which degrades plastics and other organic materials with Sun exposure.
check facts please. did not say "not recommend to use it (PLA materials) outdoor". says most likely degrade, there are you tubers testing pla outdoor. at most in 5 years, discolored. no chalking or falling apart.
one process for making fibers without heat would be pulling the gooey substance through a series of pulley-like wheels, like was traditionally done when making nylon in factories
PLA has some trade-offs (like any material) that are both good and bad for this project: 1) It's strong and stiff, but brittle and inflexible (not good) 2) It tolerates fillers and pigments really well compared to a lot of other plastics (good) 3) It's low-toxicity and kinda biodegradable, but only composts well in an industrial composter and less well in the environment. (still better than most other plastics) 4) It's degraded by heat and sunlight pretty easily (bad). A PLA object will quickly deform on the dashboard of your car. It would suck if your t-shirt turns stiff and deformed in the dryer. A UV stabilizer might help with the light sensitivity at least. There are a lot of different PLA formulations, and my experience is that the higher temperature printing ones (e.g. 220 C) are better in every respect. A lot of these are sold as HTPLA, but the specific resin I like is 3D870. It's considerably more flexible, in particular.
@@bjornSE PET is not as IR transparent as many other plastics are. Acrylic, PE, PP, apparently PLA, and PVC for example are way more IR transparent. Edit to add (but not in any broad spectrum sense. Few materials are nearly completely IR transparent in all bandwidth ranges of IR. For the atmospheric sky window cooling effect, we're mainly looking for the range of 8 to 13 um).
Another peak drawback is that it's plastic. This video is literally about making microplastics. If we want radiator cooling for clothing it's probably better to make panels that you wear like armor and not plastic threads
@@nigeladams8321 He's spraying microplastics out of a spray gun with zero PPE. I love the concept of this cooling material, but PLA is not a magical material without any environmental or ecological implications. He needs to address this.
I'm a bit confused by the responses here about plastic/microplastics. A big source of microplastics is indeed clothing. But does that mean the posters here mentioning it, only ever wear natural fiber based clothing? (If so, kudos to y'all). I mean, I love my linen and alpaca clothing, but I still wear a lot of nylon, polyester, etc. They are incredibly useful in some conditions and respects.
Congratulations! It reminds me of the stringing in 3D printing that is apparently caused by the filament not being dry. Also, I think the cotton candy extrusion method might work with a more accurate temperature control so it doesn't burn the plastic, as well as maybe higher RPM to get more pressure. Maybe playing around with a 3D printing extruder could get you somewhere? It's pretty easy to draw the molten plastic into very thin fibers with those. Btw., why is the Styrofoam in the last outdoor experiment even colder? It seems to be reflecting IR quite a bit?
I've noticed that styrofoam is really cold on thermal too. I think probably it is a radiative cooling material because it's full of air which makes it reflective in the same way as the materials I've been trying to make. However the cooling may look more signifigant than it is because the foam has very low thermal mass and doesn't take much cooling to signifigantly change surface temp. I need to do more experiments with it though to see if it could be useful as an off the shelf cooler
Hmmm... Would it string better in the machine if the mixture wasn't completely dry? The sugar becomes a liquid when it's heated. The test mixture clumps when heated. You may need something more viscous when heated but immediately turns solid as it's flung from the machine??? 🤔
@@Nighthawkinlight theres a product called Neopor which is a kind of styrofoam that incorporates graphite into it, which makes it a much better insulator. Might be something to read into, seems like it could pair well with some of the stuff youve been playing with in this series. From the manufacturer BASF: "Silver-Grey Neopor GPS is comprised of many small pockets of air within a polymer matrix containing graphite. The graphite reflects radiant heat energy like a mirror, increasing the material's resistance to the flow of heat, or R-value."
@@Nighthawkinlight I was going to comment about this, styrofoam is polystyrene and could be disolved in the solvents your using for the PLA if im not mistaken. Maybe adding some into the mix could help with thermal or mechanical properties, polystyrene is kinda flexible-ish
I have to say again, Your channel has to be my #1 Science channel on youtube! The amount of things you've done i copied for everyday use is incredible! Made myself some PCM Coolpads for my cosplays, Lampblack for painting, tried the expanding fireproofing (didn't work, so gotta try again!) Next project is rebuilding the rope-making machine to recycle plastic bottles!
![ลองสุ่มไอโฟน 990 โกงมั้ย? [ โกงมั้ยครับ ep.101 ] | DOM](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bfsWe0j492k/mqdefault.jpg)
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This video ended up being quite a lengthy string of experiments that does finally land on success in the end. There are a number of things I'd like to try now that I've made cooling fibers, first of all to increase the scale of production so I can test various applications for clothing. Using PLA has some great advantages for its ability to biodegrade (under the right circumstances) and also an extremely favorable emission spectra in the infrared range for radiative cooling. The fibers made in this video I think could be suitable as is for certain semi rigid clothing items like hats, but possibly are too brittle for very flexible items like shirts. The brittleness might eventually be resolved by modifications on how the fibers are processed, or by mixing the PLA with plasticizers or another more stringy plastic. Of course I also have many more things to try to increase cooling performance further! Let me know what you'd like me to try next in this series. Check the video description for a link to the complete radiative cooling series to see my other videos on this topic.
- Ben
Bro, your videos are solid. You're one of my favorite experimenters for engineering materials. There's always something new.
Absolut cool video!!! Have you considered to buy a used magnetic heater/stirrer for such experiments to get more homogenous mixtures? For making clothing fibers, BaSO4 is not realy ideal Barium is toxic. Gretings from Germany
It would be super cool if you made a e-paper display but the white dots are made of cooling micro spheres and the black was made of something like vanta black, so with just a voltage you could switch between heating from the sun or cooling from the radiative spheres.
hey you hit it! bro you did it!
The styroform performed better into ur experiment...
Him saying "I have a really good feeling about this" at minute 25 while the video is 1.5 hours long is never a good sign
We need the fails and the success. It's very important in optimizing experiments. 😂
Me at the 55 minute mark only finally noticing how long the video is
@@Genghisbeard I am sitting in here thinking why he didn't put the fluid PVA mixture straight into the cotton candy machine?
I believe that you'd need to modify the bowl in the machine a little for it to be successful.
Instead, he added the already solid pieces of PVA into the machine and gradually crank it up to max.
If it doesn't work, let's try more, right?
😅, agree. reading this and just realised at around minute 21, when he said the exact phrase. lucky me. *edit: not exactly but similar, "that is a really good sign"
i loved every minute though1
fun fact, fiberglass insulation is made with basically a large heavy duty water cooled cotton candy machine, also pla pellets are significantly cheaper than the filament in bulk, and would be easier to feed
I winced a little when he chopped up the filament :D
But maybe it was easier to get (or he already had it for a 3D printer).
@@Outlaw_Traffic_Stopsblack things absorb visible light, which the gets turned into more heat energy that would need to be carried away by IR, conduction, or convection.
Much better to reflect back as much as possible, with a mirror or at least a white color.
@@Outlaw_Traffic_Stops I think you’re probably right to use a high absorbing surface, first surface reflective, next absorb what’s left, third disperse it through condition (edit: conduction*) to the radiative cooling layer
One extra layer could theoretically boost the efficacy but may also do the opposite? Haha it would have to be tested
Cool idea though
@@firstmkb yeah you wouldn't want to use black for when you're wanting to make a commercial product, but just to see relative heating difference between two identical surfaces it shouldn't matter in the testing phase.... and it would make it easier to tell visually how much coating you've applied
And already in smalled sizes.
Despite your worry of people not liking the "extended" video format, I for one enjoyed seeing more of the process and would not mind seeing more of it.
Yep.
Me toooooo.
I really enjoy the long format! Loved to watch it on a weekend morning, sitting on the balcony with a coffee and joint!
i agree
Yes. I think the youtube metrics that are most tracked and shared with creators may be skewing the perception of what is "good"; you may get less clicks on a longer video, but those of us who are actually here for you and your experiments prefer it, unlike people who are just clicking because they saw the title or thumbnail.
I think that your content falls into a category of viewers who have a much longer attention span than average.
Not sure you're still seeing comments here but I'll give it a try. I'm writing this at the 1 hour mark, as you asked for suggestions. I work with research on fibre spinning processes, mainly "wet spinning". The cold process you're after is called "solution spinning", specifically. The idea is to extrude the solution straight into a coagulation bath, in your case water. This would also wash out the lubricant right away. But what you need is to draw, or stretch the fibres while extruding in order to orient the chains. The process you are replicating with the cotton candy machine would be "melt blowing", which is typically used for production of non-woven materials. Let me know if you have some questions regarding how to process this at a larger scale and I'll help you out.
Put my comment here for it to be higher. I got the impression that your woven fibers got yellow because the regular tap water inevitably contains some iron oxides (or rust to be simple) which precipitates on ultra thin fibers
This is what I came here to mention. I would imagine the spinnerets and curing strategy used in making Rayon is very similar to what I'd imagine would work here. (But I'm an armchair spectator in this case, so please regard this as a research thread to pull on at best.)
I was screaming at my screen most of this
where can one learn this?
@@АйбулатИсхаковand it is plausible that that is a manufacturing concern and that you need distilled water to make it but can wash it in tap water.
I'm obsessed with this whole passive cooling saga. I think it's kind of a shame you didn't happen to have any fiber artists around to bounce ideas off of for this one. Seems like you got a bit focused on recreating fiberglass when in my opinion you're basically just rediscovering the process of how we figured out how to make yarn and faux wool from polymers like polyester and acrylic. They do it by cold extruding the polymer though thread sized holes relatively high up off the ground so that by the time it falls to the ground the solvent has sufficiently evaporated and the thread is cured. Then they take those threads and spin them into yarns. You were basically half way there with the fiberglass mat technique you landed on. By the looks of the final polymer mixture I'd bet you could have done a gravity fed extrusion by just elevating a foil pan with a few holes and letting it drip out. From there you can make mats of jumbled fibers or if you're feeling real adventurous you could try spinning it into yarn. If you did manage to do that I'd be happy to test it out and make some knit or woven samples to test the passive cooling with. Just saying.
Yeah! I was chanting "drop tower, drop tower, drop tower"! haha.
Perhaps a version of the drop spindle? Good points. I've had the best luck with a turntable (as opposed to the right angle method) for the intertwined flat matting at a variety of angles as well.
Is that anything like how rayon is made?
@@dfgdfg_ I actually don't know. My experience is more with ballistic-resistant plate. I wonder now as that does seem more appropriate!
That was kind of the idea I was thinking of also. Get the tallest step ladder he has and set some kind of container up there with some pin holes at the bottom. Let it string out through the holes and hopefully by the time it got to the bottom it would have stretched out nice and thin and the solvent mostly dried out because it's so thin by that point.
This channel is definitely the most unique on TH-cam, or anywhere. No drama, just genuine curiosity mixed with a willingness to fail for the sake of working towards a goal. Please keep going.
Don't forget the likes of Ben over at Applied Science. But yes, I basically agree.
And techingredients
Absolutely.
One of the few channels today that I still get super excited about a post like I did with my Favourite Minecraft TH-camr a few years back
@@iKidTutor IIRC Mythbusters pioneered the phrase "failure is always an option" and they weren't wrong. I love channels that show how science works rather than just polishing a turd for views.
I get the sentiment but "most unique" just isn't a thing. Something is either unique, or not. Two options only, there's no gradient of uniqueness. Unique doesn't mean rare or unusual, it means "one of a kind".
you call your process "semi scientific" but testing your hypotheses, failing, and trying again is as pure of science as it can get. just because you're not using fancy equipment with very fine control over experimental conditions in a lab doesn't mean you're not being scientifically rigorous. this channel has really reconnected me to my love of science, so thank you and please keep going!
Long time 3d printer user here. That sweet candy smell and that brown "Carmel" you suspected was from the candy machine is exactly what burning PLA smells like and does when it's over heated.
I love hearing the chuckle of a patient man when he faces a way NOT to accomplish his goals. I love how you don't pitch fits when something doesn't go right. Good job sticking with it.
It's more important than being "smart"
👀👀 science
This guy has great vibes.
I was working a very boring job in a factory, so during free time I have accidentally created spiderweb shooting machine using compressed air and T pneumatic fitting. It was super simple:
I have dissolved PMMA in acetone, Then I got air gun for blowing air with 6mm nozzle. Connect T fitting to the nozzle and perpendicular to nozzle connect hose to plastic in solution. This makes vacuum by venturi effect and sucks the dissolved plastic. The effect is, that the solvent evaporates super quickly and you shoot out fibers.
Because the air is pressurized to about 7 bars, it shoots the fibers long distances, so this may not be best approach for your application.
I thought of the backyard scientist's video on a cotton candy gun, and good to hear it works with dissolved plastic as well as molten sugar. Seems the venturi effect is very important in this process, probably to slowly accelerate the fluid and prevent disintegration or clumping.
My thought was to take the goop and fire it out of a pressure washer...
Oh yeah, I saw something about a spiderweb gun too, which was basically a hot glue gun attached to an air compressor. Could do something similar.
Sounds a bit like the instant "string" in a compressed air can that you used to be able to get at a fair.
I suspect the long distance would be good for making thin "yarn". In natural fibers, longer is better. Uncertain about synthetic fibers.
As someone who lives on the sweltering Gulf Coast, where the humidity is so high that sweat doesn't evaporate, I love, love, love your alternative cooling series! AND you're doing humanity a huge favor by making it freely public knowledge. Thank you so much, sir!
I`ve been trying to power my tiny air conditioner safely from solar for two years. I just ordered a very high quality Victron charger to test. If it works by next summer, at least on sunny days, I should be able to have "free" air conditioning from 10am until about 10pm on very hot days or I can save the charge at 4pm when the sun goes behind the horrible pine trees, wait until it cools at night, and have it when I sleep. That`s the hurricane plan. It has only cost me about 4000 bucks so far....
@baneverything5580 you know they make solar powered mini split ac right? They already did the work for you. Pretty sure they cost about what you spent.
@@JT-jg8le You don`t know what you`re talking about. There is no such thing.
Beaumont/ port arthur Tx here
Completely agree.
@@baneverything5580 There are quite a few different solar powered mini split kits, from $1k-$4k. Mini splits are definitely the way to go for solar, since they are monumentally more energy efficient than standard ACs.
Half a century ago I was a materials technologist in r. And d . This is what life was like on projects. Mostly just graft, with ups, downs , and occasionally wow , we made it !!
I have two ideas. First, I saw a video from The Thought Emporium on making plastic fibre from milk. The fact that it’s milk is not important here, it’s the machine he used to make the fibers that’s important. I think you could use a similar setup to make some very long and thin fibers from your solution. Just use regular water and isopropyl instead of the chemicals he used to treat and clean the fibre since you don’t need it for the process you use. You could make a version of it that gives it a very long time for the fibre to dry out from the water bath if you start out by threading the machine with regular yarn/string first since the slime like nature of the solution gives me confidence that it would stick to the yarn and be able to get pulled into a fibre by it. This would allow you to thread a machine with a very long run time without having to guide the fibre through it as it grows. Second, I think you may be able to get a clump free solution if you dissolve the PEO in a solution first before mixing it in. I think it clumps up because it has difficulty dissolving into a solution that is already saturated. Also as a side note while PLA can decompose into safe chemicals, it has to be industrially composted in a specific way for that to happen. If you just throw your PLA clothes into nature they won’t decompose as you’re expecting. They’ll stick around for a very long time. I still think that PLA is a very viable option as it’s much more available than other plastics, including ones that do actually decompose on their own. But don’t give people the impression that it’ll just decompose if you throw it away like you did in the beginning of the video.
W comment
I was very mislead by his comment early on as well.
Whatever they make cellophane out of biodegrades naturally right? Could that be used
let's hope whatever material they use wouldn't end up as the next "asbestos".
Yeah, PLA is only degradable in controlled industrial environments
genuinely , thank you for showing us the whole process, including the messy bits and the screw ups and going over what you *think* went wrong, how you are changing your methods, and their results,
it is a much better representation of a scientific method, that more people need to see
Yes, really promotes critical thinking!
Some thoughts:
1) A magnetic stirring machine will save your sanity and time.
2a) Pour the "goo" mixture through a "pasta roller" to make large sheets rather than fibres
2b) Maybe a t-shirt "screen print" setup would allow you to layer thin sheets
3) Turn the "goo" mixture back into PLA strands and 3D print them.
4) Spin the fibres cold individually like nylon thread
Yeah...
I was getting the impression that there were specific restraints/restrictions he was imposing on himself/his process for the purpose of content? 🤷
He sorta implied he was trying to make threads so as to weave fabric 🤔 but then used the cc machine which would only ever produce a felting situation...🤔
A spindle would have served better than the cc machine it think 😄
@@animeaunty I don't think he's intentionally restricting himself at all. There's no roadmap to invention, and no one can think of everything, or know all of what already exists. As he said, that's a big part of why the comments section exists. What we see in the video is simply the direction that he saw to go without the comments that come later.
Would a magnetic stirring machine run the risk of getting stuck up in the gooey material?
@@aaronduerksen1378 I get the impression that he restricts himself to ingredients and techniques that are accessible to viewers to make it as easy as possible to replicate results.
@animeaunty if he could dial in the speed it gets flung out and the extraction rate he could very well spin it into some kind of thread as it comes out as a bunch of long loose fibers
As a school bus driver, it would be great if we could put that paint on top of school busses.
Hey Ben, and to anyone else that follows his example of paint spraying at the 41 minute mark; quick tip to fix your problem. With HVLP spray jets like that, and similar, the “tips” that protrude in front of the nozzle are directional air jets that shape the fan pattern of the spray. They should be parallel to the intended spray direction. In this example, you were spraying left-to-right-to-left; so you want those tips to be oriented left to right (or horizontal) of the nozzle - NOT up and down (or vertical). As you had the nozzle configured at the 41minute mark, the appropriate application direction would have been moving your spray pattern top-to-bottom-to-top for a much finer and even coating. Hope this helps ya Ben and anyone else that wants to follow along!
As always thanks for the great content!
it's so heart warming to read nice comments like this :)
Yeah, the pattern looked too narrow also, painters usually overlap 50% on each pass, so that would make getting a consistent coat easier with it not being so visible going on. I would also apply a coat side to side, then one up and down to even it out.
I used the cheap Harbor Freight gun and thinned Behr paint on my DIY kitchen cabinets and they came out like glass!
@@brianmi40 I’m not an expert on the application process; haven’t attempted it either. However, IIRC, Ben’s application process is similar to the process that Tech Ingredients also taught over on their channel. Left to right, up and down are fine; however, what is considered the “best” way at the moment is attempting to keep the coat thickness similar/uniform, but the application direction randomized, and the application layering thin. This is not a process (and I may be wrong on Ben’s specific use case) that you want a heavy, blended, smooth-like-glass result. The particulates that each channel are using in order to achieve the sub-ambient temperature goal need to be applied similarly to snow fall. The particulates will enhance the desired effect by stacking (during spray application) in a non-uniform way, and the thinner each application layer the better chance you have of achieving that result; as the solvent can flash quicker and the blending of particulates into a semi-uniform structure is minimized. All of that takes time and patience; I think Tech Ingredients did 15 total layers - but it has been quite a while since I have watched their video on it; may be more or less than 15.
Thank you for the info!
Thanks for pointing out helpful tips like this.
I love that Ben always shows both the successes and failures like how real science is done. I also love his chuckle throughout the videos.
SUPER cool (no pun intended), that you publish a "failed" experiment. That failure just put you one step closer to success. Kudos for transparency and help everyone see that failing is ok.
Lots of transparency and lots of even cooler reflection (puns fully intended)!
But yeah, seeing the messy process of trying different things and documenting your results to develop a technology makes it much easier to appreciate how one would acquire and use these skills to solve other problems, rather than just seeing someone accomplish a feat with no context and feeling like you couldn't do the same.
@37:00 You said to let you know if we enjoy being along for the ride in this type of video. Definitely enjoy it, Love it. 👍
Yes, please do keep making long-form videos; I really don't like when TH-cam scientists and engineers (I'm not using this expression derogatorily) cut out or greatly simplify the problems, mistakes, and dead ends of their journeys. Going through your reasonig is quite enlightening. Thank you!
1:31:28 no, thank you!!! The fact that you include all your optimism, followed by the failures, reflections, and irritations! It's so good! Many times we don't see "how the sausage is made" and are just presented with the results, but you've gone above and beyond to demonstrate why the process matters and why knowing that it took to get there is important!!!
To me it was mildly annoying, but only because I was expecting it to be a short video and the title said success, then got to see all the failures. An early disclaimer would have made me skip to the end result. Very cool work though! Congrats!
1:28:47 "We are _at_ ambient temperature. That means this has to be cooling -- _actively cooling_ -- the heat that is coming off of it, in order to maintain that temperature."
You continue to blow my mind, good sir. Your zeal and joy are equal parts infectious and inspirational. Congratulations for making a few legitimately grand strides in advancing the techniques and technology. I am now going to be daydreaming of some day buying a jacket woven from RadSky fabric!
I have enjoyed and learned a lot from your "short" videos, this longer format showing more of your process and how you've learned what you're showing is even better! One of the main reasons I keep coming back to creators such as you is because of the amount of information presented, and this longer format brings so much more information that is very valuable to me! NileRed is another example of a creator that uses a similar content formula that greatly boosts the information density. Thank you for going in this direction in this here video, and I hope you create more longer videos in the future showing your full project process.
I love the practical applications of your projects, this is citizen science at it's best! Cheers! 8-)
Man, I just love your videos. I've met many Phd's who aren't even half the scientist that you are. Your drive and enthusiasm while experimenting in your garage is what makes a good scientist. Not the frequency at which you can publish half arsed bread-crumb papers. Although sadly, academia would disagree with me there.
Anyways, congrats on your achievement!
Academia often is the last source of good information. Two degrees actually helped me to become more stupid.
Not a lot of academics seem to bother with doing physical experimentation so much anymore.
@@hippie-io7225 I wouldn't agree that most academia is the last source of good information. My main problem with academia is the pace things get done. For an experiment like this, you'd probably need to write up multiple proposals, create a robust schedule, and get a budget approved before even starting experimentation. It gets to the point where an experiment that could be done with household chemicals in a backyard over the span of a week ends up taking over a year.
@@hippy_flipAnd bam we got science for sale to the highest bidder.
Academia is designed to get grants and perpetuate itself.
Failures aren't a waste of time. They are an inevitable part of the process and I think it's great you share them.
there are no failures... just unplaned results ;)
I see a lot of comments about electrospinning and I just want to caution that it is extremely slow compared to melt spinning and so probably not viable for making textiles. Also, PLA does undergo hydrolytic degradation (degradation by water). its slow, but if this is for clothing i think it may not survive washing, and of course washing could affect the microstructure as well. PLA is also a semicystalline polymer and that means that its mechanical properties will depend on its temperature "history". You can tune (or ruin) the mechanical properties by exposing it to different heating/cooling/annealing cycles. (Also PEO is another name for PEG if you/others are trying to source it. Its available in a huge range of molecular weights as well, giving another variable to play with)
this is one of the few channels wherein I consistently enjoy browsing the comments to find helpful knowledgeable gems like this
another problem with pla if you are washing it is that it becomes soft at approximatly 50°C, so depending on your setting, your t-shirt may melt...
Thanks for that info, PLA is new as a substrate to me. I never thought of the hydrolytic properties.
As a correction, whomever is calling PEO the same as PEG doesn't understand the chemistry. PEG is Polyethylene Glycol. It is actually, chemically speaking- a Hydrogel, not a solid, nor semi-crystalline or phase-change material like PLA. it also has much smaller chains, most of the formulations used for 3D printing avg around 4000-6000 mol. If you were to substitute one for the other you would get vastly different results. From a chemical standpoint is has more in common with latex paint, than a plastic. It needs a much smaller chain, because the more chains there are the easier it is to bind with other materials- take "Rubber Cement" for instance, although it doesn't form very strong bonds, it can bond to virtually anything- if you need a work surface that it cant stick to, it must be impervious; meaning that it cannot bond to it at a molecular level. Silicone sealant & molds display this ability well also.
PEO- on the other hand, (Polyethylene Oxide) means there is an oxide reaction with oxygen, as a result it sticks to itself very well, but usually creates a barrier between it & other materials, even similar ones. Most of the time it exhibits properties like a bowden tube, where you can melt the polymer inside it, but the surfaces physically repel each other. A really good example of this are those filament mergers that let you combine the end of a short roll with a new one. Most use either PEO or another material with similar properties.
To be fair, there are 3D printers that print with PEO, but ONLY in a Aqueous gel form & it is extremely molecularity dense (approx. 900,000 moles, many times more dense than NHIL made in this vid) The next most common use of PEO is as a low/non-adhesive layer on build plates. It's suitable for PLA, TPU, and PETG filament. It also has the unique property of if it is coated in a pattern & allowed to crystallize, it will impart that same crystalline structure & pattern to the print on top of it. It's how you get those novelty holographic color or light bending effects on the surface of a print touching the PEO bed. Most ppl are probably more familiar with PEI- (Polyetherimide) as it's the most common bed coating material, because of it's great adherence for nearly all materials to at least some extent.
@@elvendragonhammer5433 Thank you, sir! I am more acquainted with the glycol, so that clears a lot up for me personally. The Bowden tube example - very easy to visualize - and instructive.
I feel emotion between your laughs after not achieving what and trying again and again and at the end hard work payoff, I really connect to your videos thanks for not doing what every other channels do.
"I don't want your support if you can't afford it" I think this is the exact right attitude
Thx 🥹 it's a tough question. What does "can I afford it" even mean, when you don't have much?
I think it is rather off putting. You do WANT our support, whether it's send money or like, comment, share, and subscribe.
I mean I don't know exactly how TH-camrs get paid, but have heard the biggest factor is number of subscribers times the number of views.
Likes and comments help move videos up the ladder on what pops up as suggestions.
Shares get more people to come watch the video (^ $ views) and possibly new subscribers (^ $).
It's all support, even if not money sent directly.
But yeah pateron, is guaranteed money, like a set budget. Not subjected to money that varies from sponsors or ads or TH-cam rule changes.
This is the same attitude as President Trump.
He must have seen that guy who does personal budgeting interviews when he had on a guest that took out *home equity loans* for superchats
@@robertbooth7396 what?
Totally in awe not only of the subject matter but more of the brutal honesty of your process. Truly a renaissance man.
I’m about an hour and 11 minutes into the video, so I’m not sure if you address this, but just a thought: After letting the PLA/PEO mixture fully dry, I would try running it through a grinder of some form (coffee grinder, mortar & pestle, etc) to get a semi-uniform particle size, if it is dry enough to do so.
I believe one of the issues you came across with using the cotton candy machine is the fact that the PLA/PEO you used was in different sized chunks, reducing the efficiency of the heating element and not letting it draw itself into long fibers when melting.
The sugar used to make cotton candy is typically a uniform particle size, allowing it to heat/melt evenly and combine into fibers, and I believe the same is true when plastic is recycled and draw into fiber as well.
ETA: Reducing the surface area may also allow a more efficient and even heat, lowering the amount of heat/energy & time needed to melt the material (same principle as trying to light a chunk of wood on fire vs fine tinder, and snow melting faster compared to a chunk of ice)
This video breaks the barrier that sometimes exists in formal science. It is important because it shows that it is possible, by turning things around, to make or recreate ideas and dreams. Thanks for another interesting video..!
What a project! Will you blame me if I say I was excited every time you've encountered a failure? Every time you've hit a snag you've had multiple cool ideas to fix or improve the process. At the end of the video, there are SO many unexplored paths left hanging. Dropping the plastic into water, automating the raking process, experimenting with the amounts of the PEO (it's obvious you couldn't risk it with the time constraints), experimenting with cold spinning with the cotton candy machine, and so many more... There's at least a few video's worth of ideas inside this one, and with how it's going, there will be probably even more ideas in the consequent videos. Excited to see them!
@@constantineandriyanov8200 most importantly, it's ABSOLUTELY worth it!! You are definitely on to something with this one. I'd say run with it for as long as it takes.
I'm very early days of fiber optic production, it was necessary to make a rig that was nine stories tall.
At the top was an oven that would heat a crucible that had a hole in its bottom.
Once the material was molten they would remove the plug from the bottom and a single drop would plummet the entire Nine Stories carrying with it a strand.
By the time it got to the bottom it had cooled and annealed and could be wound on a spool.
exactly what I was thinking, my stepmom worked at the corning plant in Wilmington NC and I learned about the towers from her. :-)
What do you mean "very early days"? I remember seeing exactly that with modern fibers in the 2010s.
Today, as I'm sure you know, it's extruded to have the coating around it. Which is what I think should be done here. Simply pass nylon thread through a bath of bubble filled material, then pull it through a hole of the desired final diameter size (which is similar to what a 3D filament extruder does, to make filament for 3D printers from plastic that is melted and pushed out the hole, pulled through a cooling water bath, then spooled).
@@leocurious9919
1952 fiber optic cable invented
1964 successful transmission over fiber optic cable
Yeah, the plant in Wilmington is crazy. I installed a weird crane thingy for handling soot sticks (the pure silica preforms they make) that my company made, and they have SO much weird stuff. The whole time I was working I kept getting distracted by one of the soot stick making machines, thing looked like something out of a sci-fi movie with a spinning core getting blasted by fire.
This video was not even remotely boring, i didn't even notice the 1.5 hours go by! The editor did a good job 👍👍👍
I can't say I'm not a little bit frustrated you never tried to cold spin the liquid with the cotton candy machine! It seemed like the perfect fit, but all other commenters suggested much better options, so they should be worth exploring next time.
Another thing I'd love to mention is that PLA loves taking in water and becoming brittle when cold as well as foaming when hot/printed, so keep it dry when storing for future tests to rule out variables. However since you want foam you might also want to look into light weight pla which foams up with heating (intentionally 😁)
Dude, I made a sighed as I saw how long your video is upon a first watch, but once I start I literally can't stop. The thirst for curiosity is stronger than ever. You are like the perfect teacher, because you are able to explain and do demos at the same time, so it's very engaging and there's is no point where I thought the pacing was slow. Keep up the great work!
Loved that you included the whole process! This is how real science gets done.
Electrospinning could be an option for producing ultra-reflective fibers, but it is just so slow lol. There are plenty of cool fiber forming process that might work for this application like Wet Spinning, or immersion rotary jet spinning
that's one expertly chosen hook for the video. if i wasn't sure about watching a 1.5 hour video before your very first sentence, i certainly was _after_ your first sentence.
spending hours of testing, analyzing, explaining, and theorizing is exactly the reason you got a new sub. Sure, I love seeing the final product and everything together, but the journey is more important than the destination. Especially the setbacks, it's only failure if something wasn't learned from the experiment.
Wait I just watched how long?
2x speed. Then it's "only" 45 minutes 😎👍
@@narxic I'm a big fan of 2x.
@@fritzwilhelm8258 nice, you're the first I know, now, that is a fan. Oh, how about some people talk SOOO Slow you gotta check to see if it's still on 2x speed, AND IT IS!!. That ever happened to you? I'm looking at you The Quartering 😅
You could take your sprayer to a high spot (tall ladder, roof, etc...) and spray the solution into the air to create fibers.
IIRC that's how fiberglass was accidentally discovered
This is basically how "spray-on clothes" worked
Long time fan of your channel. i've also been showing my new born your videos as educational content. I wanted to comment to say that i work with a construction company and i was really interested in this series for the applications in our projects. This particularly caught my eye for uniforms for the workers. Not only could it function similar to hi-vis materials for safety, if clothing could provide a passive cooling effect, them you could save lives with this. I would love to have a conversation with you about this.
An hour and a half! Omg yes. I got scared after you were done playing with the cotton candy, that we had already gone a third of the video. Super happy to see over an hour left. This series has been super fascinating
there is no way I am watching a one hour and thirty mi... and I watched it.
@@allocater2 you can do x2 speed play back when short on time to watch
When I saw the result of raking the pla across the bottom of that baking pan, my first thought was "that looks like the mesh used for drywall repairs."
All we need now is radiative cooling plaster to slap atop the radiative cooling mesh
With my mind half cleared after watching other random videos, and half grinding around in the background, I started to wonder.
"what if that thicker radiative fiber mix were either spread atop of, or squished down by, drywall mesh or window mosquito mesh? After that test, what if it were squished between two layers of the same or differing meshes?"
Yea, and then put the piece on our skin as a shirt or hat, um not me and not me to throw these clothing items into a landfill.
@@noel3422 didn't he say it was biodegradable plastic?
Netflix has nothing on you..
Your excitement and curiosity is infecting. Very nice
Love this type of content where the creator takes the time to walk the spectators through what they're doing, the successes and failures
Dude, you're my science hero
About the paint gun job, you are painting without flatening the spayed jet of paint. The little "nipples" (sorry i'm french i don't know the exact terms) on the head of the gun, which you can rotate, have (when set properly) air going through them that help to flatten the paint coming out the middle of the head. That way you can paint evenly instead of have a small round dot of paint going out. They must be horizontal in order to flatten the paint from left to right and have a wide flat jet of paint going out of the gun, this way you paint from left to right (or vice versa), if you rotate the nipples (put them vertical), they flatten the spray horizontaly and you can paint from top to bottom. Use the knob on the back on the gun to adjust the air flow through the nipples.
Nozzle is the word you're looking for, I prefer nipples though lol
My observation exactly!
@Paratyphi, good comment and expression in your non-native language.
‘Nozzle’ or ‘tip’ are appropriate English terms for the exit point. ‘Tabs’ are the exterior leverage point used to rotate the adjusting ring to change the spray pattern.
Can I just say how much I fucking love this community that you fostered,
The comment sections are just FILLED with information, it's insane
People bouncing around ideas with eo, talking to eo about spinning methods, it's crazy how many fields of research you've cultivated to be in this community
EO?
each other - eo
As for spinning your fibers... Sewing machines have a rotating peg on top for loading bobbins. Something like that is what you need. Put together a sideways drum and variable speed motor with pedal; place the beaker in front. Use a stir stick to affix one strand to the drum. Slowly start spooling as to maintain tension. That'd be my recommendation as a longtime fiber artist.
1:11:43 When I saw you initially pulling the strands on the last attempt it reminded me of pulling sugar for patisserie. Many sugar artisans pull fine strands by hand making our own candy floss, sometimes with the help of a heat lamp. You can check Chinese cotton candy makers for better demonstrations than I could ever do.
It would eliminate the browning in the cotton candy machine and you could immediately set it in solution for drying. Fantastic video!
Sir, you are beyond scientific, a true scientist. The scientific spirit is in you for sure. I truly enjoy the bloopers and mistakes, not only for the motivation it could give those failing, but because it shows your honesty. Which allows trust to build between you and the audience. Keep up the great work, and congratulations on your discoveries. 🤝
You have no idea, I will watch an eight hour video if it’s interesting like this. I’ll put it on while I sleep at night, you get views and engagement, I get to sleep while listening to something super interesting it’s a win win
One of the things I appreciate about your channel is that you include it in your videos when something doesn’t work out, and then explore why not and possible alternative solutions. It’s so easy on TH-cam to endlessly truncate one’s work, whether to hide errors or to make something simple and more consumable at the cost of utility like those “cooking videos” that don’t actually list measurements, but you seem to care about what you do enough that you want to share it authentically. I guess I can’t really read your motivations since I don’t know you, but I still wanted to let you know I think it’s cool.
I said it about your opal video, I'll say it again, this is not science, you are clearly a wizard. Yet another absolutely awesome video, and yes watching the whole process is genuinely fascinating and not at all boring. The background stuff is as much a part of it as the rest, loving the videos and genuinely intrigued as to how it carries on progressing. Great work.
Ben, great video. Glad for the longer format. Industrially, "cotton candy" polymers are known as dry spinning, while the fibers gathered in the water outside your beaker are wet spinning. The latter works through coagulation (requires a higher solvent/polymer ratio) but is suited for very thin fibers. It could be tested, as you need to washing it anyway.
I teach high school English. My students rarely see the process of working through failure to achieve success. Many have given up on writing because they have not had concrete examples of how the PROCESS of “failures” leads to success. Thanks for sharing the steps you had to work through in order to land at success. I’m excited to see where this goes!
It was really nice to see the failure along the way. As a perfectionist, I tend to stop and/or redo everything, when the results aren't what I want. Knowing that failure can lead to better results than expected, is one thing. Seeing it in action, is way more motivating.
I like your attitude when experimenting and how you laugh off obstacles in your way. I had watched a few of your videos in the past but this one is the one that earned my sub.
Thank you
The "crackel" effect may be a consequence of painting one paint on top of another. Painting layers with two specificly different types of paint is how the cracle effect is purposly achieved in effect painting kits. I'm not sure of the science between the two paints that causes the crackle, but you may have accidentally hit the dweet spot there.
Could be different rates of expansion and contraction or the slow outgassing of solvent
Not necessarily, I've got a couple of different acrylic mediums that crackle in one layer each.
Idea, why not take the solvent solution and put that in the cotton candy machine without the heating? the heating is to melt the plastic into a liquid which it already is, and the heating seems to be reducing reflectivity. and if its dripping still after its spun you could try slanting the walls or another catching mechanism.
I love how this guy seems so happy about his experiments all the time, makes me smile throughout the whole video along with him
A major benefit of having a passive cooling fabric is that you can say fold it up and pack it away - making it potentially easier to have something you can put out and then put away again. This would be fantastic as an umbrella for example. Amazing work!
You can also seal the drum of the cotton candy machine with a plexiglass and feed an inert gas like nitrogen into it to prevent fibers from oxidation. Using an inert gas that is heavier than the air is preferred since you have to lift the lid and pour the material into the hot chamber.
Just make a lid with a pipe in the middle.
Argon and nitrogen are both cheap from welding suppliers.
@@charlesurrea1451 true, a funnel in the middle of the lid works as well.
@@chemistryofquestionablequa6252 I was thinking of dropping couple chunks of dry ice inside the drum since CO2 is heavier than the air around it.
@@TechSurreal might chill the drum too much but you can always try.
@55mins... incredibly humble and honest with the fail and the reasoning why you felt it failed. Thank you for doing science right!
btw you can do 55:00
*laughs maniacally into snorkel disk*
RRRRRRESSSSSS HERHERHERHERHERRRR😂
insert witch at cauldron meme here ^_^
Great idea but wrong filter and nose is still open.
@@hellogoodbye3129He shows his nose clip later.
@@ElectricNed thank you I missed that.
such a cool video! Personally i love the longer format. Seeing the challenges along the way, the real time problem solving and perseverance is really inspiring as a DIYer myself.
Look into polymer fiber drawing rather than spinning. Leaking the solvent out of a tiny hole you can allow it to dry in the air enough to loop it around rollers, so it can be drawn thru a bath of water then spooled up using a small motor with adjustable rmp. Im sure it would be tricky but you could use this to draw very long fibers and have them continually processed as they are being drawn, air dryed and spooled for use.
I think the thought emporium made one of these!
Yes, water can draw out solvents even faster than evaporation, in some cases, and then can later be easily driven off itself.
There is another method that might be worth investigating. Back in college I was doing research making batteries, and we were producing nanofiber mats with a base matrix of Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) using an electrospinner.
Working principal is you have a high negative voltage going to a needle on a syringe with your solution. This ejects it out towards a spinning drum with a high positive voltage, and the material jumps the gap and latches on, producing your mat.
I was using 400 rpm on the drum, with a voltage of -2 kV and 25 kV on the syringe and foil. The solution was PAN + other additives with DMF as the solvent. The additives here were battery related so they can be ignored, but it was mainly 1g PAN to 12g DMF. Once ejected it goes solid and forms the mat. The mats were quite tough and fabric like, but it did heavily depend on how long you spun for your end thickness.
We had both a commercial machine and one we diy'd prior to getting said commercial one, so it should be possible to diy at home.
PLA should also work instead of PAN, so your solution would only need to be made more liquid and it should be able to work.
Interesting, reminds me of how powder coating works via corona charging to electrostatically apply the material.
The drawback of PLA is that it is not UV resistant, so nylon would be better. What's new to me in all this is that simply micro-bubbles in clear material induce high reflectivity. Seems almost unimaginable someone didn't start making nylon thread with a controlled amount of such bubbles in a target diameter to retain tensile strength... seems like a huge and relatively in reach patent for someone to pursue and rock the fabric world for summer outdoor garments.
@@brianmi40 Hmm, maybe a core of solid nylon (or whatever the fibre is made out of) and a 'sheath' of the micro-foamed stuff, to preserve the fibre's strength while having a high density of the bubbles exposed to the surface?
@@05Matz I'm thinking that's the easiest to make, but for mass commercial production, seems like they just develop the means to add the micro bubbles into the nylon itself.
I absolutely love you taking us along for the ride. The longer the ride the more knowledge I can absorb. Your long videos are kickass. LOL Thank you for the time and effort you put in.
My friends ask me when I have the time to watch an hour and a half video. I ask when they have time to watch a football game and if they learned anything useful while watching. Bless you for sharing your knowledge. Knowledge is the most valuable thing I have. Watching these videos adds to my wealth. Great job. Thanks.
This is.. The start of something legendary. Be thoughtful, be careful. Great work!
The coldest object in your testing contraption seems to be the Styrofoam. Might worth investigating.
1:29:36
Maybe because the light is not incident to it and thick as well?
the horizontal, dark styrofoam surface is cooled by the moving air and is not heated by reflections from the inside of the measuring rig
I came looking for this comment. How does the thermal camera rate the Styrofoam?
@@stereoDecor There are cold spots on the FLIR imagery at 1:29:23 of the styrofoam trapped beneath the film
@@justinw1765 If this particular styrofoam were transparent to IR, wouldn't we then be able to see through it to the grass beneath in the FLIR pictures? In much the same way that we can easily see through the transparent plastic film. However, the edges of the styrofoam are still crisp in the imagery, suggesting no transparency.
Thanks for keeping in the disappointments and failures, it really is part of the process and seeing that others also deal with it is important I think, at least for my confidence, lol
I am interested in replicating such cooling methods in my off-grid forest dwelling, iteration is hard and it's good to know the gotchas
I like the ‘on the journey’ approach of this video. I really value seeing how you solve problems and experiment 😊
A good method for drawing out plastic fibers is called elctro spinning. You would need to extrude them into an electrostatic field, which would draw the fibers out to thin strands. Not sure how expensive it would be to buy/make such a spinner. Looking forward to seeing your future paint and fiber results!
Couldn't help myself noticing the similarities between this new style of video and NileRed's format. Crazy premise, multiple snags, multiple new ideas and solutions to fix those snags, time and material stakes, you've got it all! And talking about Nigel, it really looked like many of the problems you've encountered could be solved or simplified by his expertise or equipment. I'm not talking about collab, of course (that's obviously just wishful thinking), but contacting him on some of the issues could really speed up the further project endeavors, and chemist's perspective seems very valuable to me when working with polymers. NileRed seems to be an active part of american creator youtube community, so contacting him seems like something realistic? Just my thoughts though, of course, but it might be something worth looking into.
This is hands down my favorite video you've done - the failures, lesson in perseverance, the genuine joy at the success... this one is as inspirational as it is informational. we can truly appreciate not just how cool (pun intended) the end product is, but that it is an absolute triumph. huge grins all around watching you make that crude gauze with the crude rake tool.
@NightHawkInLight I have been watching your videos for so many years. I'm currently not in a position to donate, but I just want to say thank you as a long-time viewer. Thank you so much for your hard work and dedication!
Well, since you like comments :) -
Your videos are a great help to me, not just because they're entertaining and educational, but they also give me hope. Climate change and its effects give me a lot of anxiety, but seeing people like you and Robert Murray-Smith, not just crank out things like radiative cooling paint, home-made wind turbines, and graphene, but then give away recipes that anyone with a grocery store in town could make? That makes me feel like we might just make it - and possibly have some fun while we're at it. Thanks man :)
Have you heard of electrospinning. It is not really a process that will give you lots of fibers but it produces nanofibers which might be helpful for the radiative cooling.
I have, I tried it during a live stream but haven't gotten it working right yet. There's another person with a great video on the subject in his attempts to make an artificial heart valve
@@Nighthawkinlight Yes, that video is where I found out about it :)
@@Nighthawkinlight sir, I've owned and ran a certain hot glue gun this one had a hook up for compressed air and blasting the air all around glue nozzle shot it out like a spider web and bet ur boots that's exactly what it's sold for n what I did with it. Now if we infuse those glue sticks with some zeolite? Wich I also found dirt dirt dirt cheap as its sold as stall refresher for a horse. Lmk what ya think and glue gun bought at Walmart obviously before Halloween lmk.
Do you know the brand name and maybe a model number? I don't see anything like that online but I'd sure like to try it!
@@MaxWithTheSax webcaster II
Consider spinning the slurry+solvent without a basin to catch. Since the slurry makes great fibers to begin with, something like a peanut butter jar with a few tiny holes, mounted to a handheld drill, spun in free air would create the fibers at a height, so fine that the solvent can flash off before they hit the ground. Sauce: This is how movie special fx make cobwebs on sets - they have a spinnydrum full of that sets before they land, leaving drooping fluff everywhere.
Hot glue and Fiberfill from the sewing world is what we use most of the time. For most of the stuff coming into contact with actors cotton candy is quite popular however you need bigger strands to have the camera "see" it. Most hate it, messy as heck. Kinda like "snow" being plastic regrind. That plastic still falls out of some soundstage soundproofing and rafters after getting blown everywhere by the Ritters (fans) on set. UGH...
It may we worth trying the solvent goop in your cotton candy spinner with the heater off or very low. You'd probably have to experiment with the solvent content a bit to get a good balance of viscosity and drying speed. If need be you may need to remove the bowl so the fibers have more time to dry before they hit the floor.
Dude I love watching these videos. The creative process and problem solving is super inspirational. I totally want to try your paint and waterproofing recipes myself. After watching this I went out and bought a bucket, a pump, a fan, and a heat exchange to mess with using water as a thermal battery to cool my apartment during the day. Night and day temps swing like 40F where I'm at. Thanks for the inspiration! Keep them coming!
I *REALLY* enjoyed this, the length was perfect. You brought us along for the journey, and your success at the end was truly awe inspiring.
To make ultra thin polyester fibres, they use supersonic air nozzles to stretch the extruded fibre without mechanical contact. It would be interesting to pass that gelatinous substance through this process.
When did he go from coating to the clothes to just making the clothes with it? 😂 love it! Keep it up!!
The added spacers to the cotton candy machine seem like they are counter productive. One would think that a smaller opening would produce more fibers as even before the spacers were added, you had chuncks of material flinging out.
Also a possible easier solution to your drawn out fiber would be the use of a pendulum. It would aid in constant fiber size as well as ease of creating fiber mats. They would end up with a structure similar to that of a spirograph pattern.
Holy cow, Christmas came early! My inner nerd jumped for joy when I saw that there's 93 whole minutes of glorious fun nerdy goodness from this channel. It's a full length movie! I like! Time to get some popcorn.
By the way, might I suggest uploading two versions of this video and possibly the future big projects you make? One full length version with all your trials and errors like this one for fans like me with a lot of time to watch these and enjoy seeing your crazy approaches even if they don't necessarily work out, thereby enjoying the whole process. And one condensed version for your average youtube viewer who just has a few minutes to watch a short and informative youtube video before moving on. That way there's the best of both worlds and it would increase your upload count and possibly increase more traffic for your channel. Just a thought. I love these videos. Stay awesome, Ben 👍
Please, oh please combine radiative cooling with a Stirling Engine! With the hot cylinder painted black and the cold one painted with your best radiative cooling compounds. This should be awesome - and should be an interesting test for your compounds.
Let him just measure the heat flux first, then someone else can provide the appropriate engine.
I like the way you are thinking. But, note that there is a much easier way to get a heat gradient for running a solar-powered sterling engine: a parabolic mirror.
Absolutely love this longer "taking us along with the explorative process" video
I don't know how the hell I ended up on this video and have zero chemistry knowledge, but that was awesome! I'm infinitely curious about solving obscure problems and so was captivated from start to finish. Love your enthusiasm and I wanted to high five you at the end when you nailed it! A great pay off for all the sweat. Thanks for sharing ☺️👍
I think your problem with this will be PLA and UV exposure. While you might achieve a result that works when testing, UV light will degrade, embrittle, and discolor the PLA with time, likely causing it to lose it's cooling ability. This is likely why the original authors went with a more exotic plastic.
Also, while PLA is *technically* biodegradable. In practice, it isn't. It will likely take tens of decades, or hundreds of years for PLA to properly degrade. You do have to worry about the microplastics you generate in this process. Even if PLA is technically inert and safe to eat, your body cannot digest it and will slowly bioaccumulate more over time.
I think a cooler, hah, approach might be to find a way to add in dense nanofoam to vinyl siding when it's extruded. That way you are using an already outdoor tested polymer, and you aren't creating microplastics by making it through fibers. Dealing with making PVC at home would likely not be for the faint of heart though...
You wouldn't be able to make clothes out of it, but I think making clothes out of synthetic plastics at all is proving more and more every day to be a horrible idea in general. The sythetic fibers in clothes rub together as we move causing them to shed microplastics that end up in our food, our lungs, our bodies, and the environment.
PLA is poly lactic acid, it depolymerizes into lactic acid, and it's soluble in water. It's like litterally the most biodegradable polymer out there besides cellulose ironic we don't look at wood as litter but cellulose is litterally plastic polymer litter, there just happens to be micro organisms that have evolved to break it down.
Also kinda wild suggesting PVC over PLA when considering environmental factors PVC is so so much worse from production, to disposal.
I agree that PLA would not hold up to outdoor use though.
@@HerbaMachina Yes, no organisms, including us, can break it down currently. Just because wood is a polymer, and PLA is a polymer doesn't mean PLA is safe. Chemically, yes it's fine, but as a microplastic within the body it is unknown what health affects it has. But most studies suggest it isn't great, and the effects are worse the smaller the particles get.
For example, carbon is safe in the body. You can eat it just fine. But carbon fiber and carbon nanotubes are *very* unhealthy to breathe in or eat. It's important to take into account more than just the chemical properties of something when considering it to be safe for humans or the environment.
PVC is more harmful for manufacture and disposal, but as siding or roof tiles it would undergo much less wear, and again would not break down in UV like PLA does. It would last decades outside without being an environmental hazard, and would not need to be removed or replaced nearly as often as something made from PLA, which might last a weeks or months...
You want something durable or not? Can't have both ways as far as I'm aware. If this was made of sugar it would've been bad in a week
I agree, and was thinking of UV degradation and yellowing as well. (Whereas acrylic is quite resistant to UV degradation).
As far as biodegradability, I'm guessing that there are probably ways to speed up the process, such as mixing it into a compost pile. The extra heat, microbes, and moisture present might help to break it down faster, while minimizing microplastics dispersal?
As there are already organisms developing an ability to break down more petrol-oil based plastics, I'm guessing for this, it would be even easier for microbes to adapt to digest and utilize it as a food source since it is already closer to a natural/bio type compound (lactic acid).
I think ultimately for the average DIY'er, the paints will be more of a useful avenue of experimentation.
this needs more likes
Everywhere people and agencies are installing shade sails, those sails need to be radiative cooling-treated. Imagine if the shade they provided wasn't just shade, but the sail itself generated a gentle draft of cool ( or at least, somewhat less hot than ambient) air falling from their surface?
Agreed. And Technology Connections recently did a cool video on the old "technology" of window awnings and other coverings to reduce Solar heat gain into houses.
So having the surface of these covered in some kind of IR-sky window emissive-sun reflecting coating could be helpful.
There are two thing I would try with cold fibers:
1) Adding an elasticizer of some sort could help reduce the number of fibers that break when folded. I don't think they could be used for anything non-stationary in their current state. I could be wrong but that's the feeling I got from the video
2) An idea for cold spinning them. The name of the material escapes me at the moment but there is a form of plastic that is commonly made as a chemistry experiment. It is formed when two liquids come into contact and, more importantly for this, the solvent evaporates fast enough in the air so you can just spool it up on a glass rod as a yarn of sorts. I wonder if you could use the solution while its being heated and draw out fibers (something like the rake idea you tried) while spooling them. The solvent doesn't seem to evaporate fast enough for this but if the solution was hot and you introduced forced airflow over the fibers while they are in the air it **might** just work.
Regardless this was a fascinating watch. Thank you for all of the interesting videos you posted over the years and I'm glad you found an editor to make your job at least a bit less time consuming
I believe you're talking about Nylon
The plastic you're referring to is nylon, if forms at the boundary between the two monomer layers, which are different density.
I agree the material is nylon. We used to call it the 'nylon rope trick'. It works really well in making long polymer spools :)
I never really comment, but long time fan - gotta say I'm a big fan of this format where you take us through the trial and error - I think that's not only full of great information but also gives a sense of how to address a problem when you come across it - I find it insightful and interesting. As always, a great video covering a very interesting topic
I'd like to point out that PLA will degrade when exposed to direct sunlight, as such it's not recommend to use it outdoors.
Worth leaving a sample out to test that. It is possible that by reflecting the light it will degrade slower.
@@recklessroges Maybe, but visible light and UV light have different properties and reactions. It reflects visible light well, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will reflect the higher energy UV light. It is primarily the UV light which degrades plastics and other organic materials with Sun exposure.
check facts please. did not say "not recommend to use it (PLA materials) outdoor". says most likely degrade, there are you tubers testing pla outdoor. at most in 5 years, discolored. no chalking or falling apart.
one process for making fibers without heat would be pulling the gooey substance through a series of pulley-like wheels, like was traditionally done when making nylon in factories
PLA has some trade-offs (like any material) that are both good and bad for this project:
1) It's strong and stiff, but brittle and inflexible (not good)
2) It tolerates fillers and pigments really well compared to a lot of other plastics (good)
3) It's low-toxicity and kinda biodegradable, but only composts well in an industrial composter and less well in the environment. (still better than most other plastics)
4) It's degraded by heat and sunlight pretty easily (bad). A PLA object will quickly deform on the dashboard of your car. It would suck if your t-shirt turns stiff and deformed in the dryer. A UV stabilizer might help with the light sensitivity at least.
There are a lot of different PLA formulations, and my experience is that the higher temperature printing ones (e.g. 220 C) are better in every respect. A lot of these are sold as HTPLA, but the specific resin I like is 3D870. It's considerably more flexible, in particular.
Wouldn't using a PET be a better option? We're makes clothes from it for a reason.
@@bjornSE PET is not as IR transparent as many other plastics are. Acrylic, PE, PP, apparently PLA, and PVC for example are way more IR transparent.
Edit to add (but not in any broad spectrum sense. Few materials are nearly completely IR transparent in all bandwidth ranges of IR. For the atmospheric sky window cooling effect, we're mainly looking for the range of 8 to 13 um).
Another peak drawback is that it's plastic. This video is literally about making microplastics. If we want radiator cooling for clothing it's probably better to make panels that you wear like armor and not plastic threads
@@nigeladams8321 He's spraying microplastics out of a spray gun with zero PPE. I love the concept of this cooling material, but PLA is not a magical material without any environmental or ecological implications. He needs to address this.
I'm a bit confused by the responses here about plastic/microplastics.
A big source of microplastics is indeed clothing. But does that mean the posters here mentioning it, only ever wear natural fiber based clothing? (If so, kudos to y'all).
I mean, I love my linen and alpaca clothing, but I still wear a lot of nylon, polyester, etc. They are incredibly useful in some conditions and respects.
I think it's enjoyable to see the steps and misteps of the process. Please make more videos with this format.
"Science is messy" man i learned that first hand making the salt based PCMs. Still worth it though!
Congratulations! It reminds me of the stringing in 3D printing that is apparently caused by the filament not being dry. Also, I think the cotton candy extrusion method might work with a more accurate temperature control so it doesn't burn the plastic, as well as maybe higher RPM to get more pressure. Maybe playing around with a 3D printing extruder could get you somewhere? It's pretty easy to draw the molten plastic into very thin fibers with those.
Btw., why is the Styrofoam in the last outdoor experiment even colder? It seems to be reflecting IR quite a bit?
I've noticed that styrofoam is really cold on thermal too. I think probably it is a radiative cooling material because it's full of air which makes it reflective in the same way as the materials I've been trying to make. However the cooling may look more signifigant than it is because the foam has very low thermal mass and doesn't take much cooling to signifigantly change surface temp. I need to do more experiments with it though to see if it could be useful as an off the shelf cooler
Hmmm... Would it string better in the machine if the mixture wasn't completely dry? The sugar becomes a liquid when it's heated. The test mixture clumps when heated. You may need something more viscous when heated but immediately turns solid as it's flung from the machine??? 🤔
@@Nighthawkinlight theres a product called Neopor which is a kind of styrofoam that incorporates graphite into it, which makes it a much better insulator. Might be something to read into, seems like it could pair well with some of the stuff youve been playing with in this series.
From the manufacturer BASF: "Silver-Grey Neopor GPS is comprised of many small pockets of air within a polymer matrix containing graphite. The graphite reflects radiant heat energy like a mirror, increasing the material's resistance to the flow of heat, or R-value."
@@Nighthawkinlight I was going to comment about this, styrofoam is polystyrene and could be disolved in the solvents your using for the PLA if im not mistaken. Maybe adding some into the mix could help with thermal or mechanical properties, polystyrene is kinda flexible-ish
I have to say again, Your channel has to be my #1 Science channel on youtube! The amount of things you've done i copied for everyday use is incredible! Made myself some PCM Coolpads for my cosplays, Lampblack for painting, tried the expanding fireproofing (didn't work, so gotta try again!)
Next project is rebuilding the rope-making machine to recycle plastic bottles!