New nanotech armor

An Israeli firm has developed armor based on nanotechnology.

ApNano has tested armor said to be five times stronger than steel and twice as strong as any impact-resistant material used in protective gear.

Last year, a sample of the ApNano material was subjected to tests in which a steel projectile traveling at a speed of up to 1.5 kilometers per second slammed into the material.

Executives said the impact was the equivalent to dropping four diesel locomotives onto an area the size of a human fingernail.
They said the nano-based armor, which stemmed from a new carbon form called Inorganic Fullerenes, withstood the impact.

The company’s chief executive officer, Menachem Genut, said the company would launch initial production within the next six months. Genut said this would mean the production of between 100 and 200 kilograms of the nano-material per day.

By 2007, Genut said, ApNano, based in Nes Ziona, Israel, would begin full-scale production of the armor. This would mean the production of several tons per day.

The company began development of the nano-material in 2004.

Genut said the nano-material would require additional field testing before it was ready for the market. He said the first product could be ready by 2009.

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