A kind of titanium powder, just one-1,000th the width of a human hair, which can make common paint surprisingly durable and resistant to corrosion, was developed by scientists in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.
Scientists have found that paint combined with titanium powder and colophony can effectively resist the heat of boiling water and erosion from sea water. It has the ability to self-repair itself and can repair metal and nonmetal materials.
China has already begun to produce this kind of paint, the first of its kind in the world.
A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter, and material smaller than 100 nanometers normally has unexpected but useful characteristics.
Xue Junfeng, an engineer involved in the research, said that he and his colleagues have found methods to preserve the nanometer titanium powder at normal conditions. Based on the technique, scientists can get copper, iron, and nickel at nanometer scale, he said.
Paint added with the nanometric titanium powder has a wide range of applications in the petrochemical industry, the making of food and mechanical manufacturing. To date, the new paint has been applied in areas of over 100,000 square meters.
It is expected that nanometer material and technology will be widely used in such areas as microelectronics, computer manufacturing, medicine, space technology, environment, energy generation, bio-technology and agriculture.
(People's Daily 11/16/2000)
