22 years ago, a material called Starlite was shown for the first time. It was invented by Maurice Ward, a former hairdresser. He died last year, leaving no data on what kind of material it was, or even in what direction it was necessary to dig in order to achieve its effectiveness.
It all started with a 1990 demonstration that took place on public television on the Tomorrow's World program. To avoid accusations of trickery, Maurice Ward entrusted the application of material to a test egg - yes, in the beginning, as always, there was an egg - to a television host. The same person heated the processed egg with a blowtorch (gasoline) up to 1,000 ° C.
Nearby was an ordinary egg, which Starlite did not touch and which, of course, could not stand even half a second of heating. It is more interesting, however, that after a few minutes (!) Of heating with a blowtorch, the presenter took an egg covered with Starlite with his bare hand, noting at the same time: "It seems slightly warm."
The egg was opened immediately, and it turned out that the yolk had not even begun to curdle.
Today, 23 years later, we have aerogels, metamaterials, graphene, nanotubes: materials science is striding by leaps and bounds. And yet we have nothing like Starlite. And, most likely, it won't. Even ultra-efficient aerogels cannot be smeared on any object with a thin layer, nor can they dissipate heat, not to mention the production technology, because of which a pinch of such material costs like a video card.
A strange man with a white beard did not even know the thermal conductivity of his own material. But he knew what we do not know: how to do it. And we were the fools …
Naturally, the TV show did not end there. The inventor from Hartlepool (Great Britain) was visited by guests. And this is understandable: in the broadcast, a reasonable observation was made that the paste can be applied to aircraft, electrical wiring, wooden doors, plastic insulators, even on the inner surface of the passenger compartment of a car or airliner. A few minutes of complete fire resistance would be useful for the firemen's overalls, as well as the heat-resistant capes that they throw on the rescuers. But you never know who else … Recall that the radio-absorbing coating of the F-22 and F-35, if it had such thermal protection, could be stably operated at supersonic, which has not yet been observed.
Ronald Mason, a chemist and former chief scientific adviser to the UK Department of Defense, was one of the first to be dispatched by the British authorities to test Starlite's capabilities.
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He was followed by Keith Lewis, head of the thin-film plastics division of the then UK Defense Research Agency. After a year and a half, he managed to convince Ward to conduct a series of tests of the wonder material, provided that he did not try to figure out the composition of Starlite. The tests included continuous laser irradiation with a pulse power of 100 mJ, focused literally on square millimeters of objects treated with Starlite. Before testing with such a laser, we made a control series of holes in the bricks. The bottom line? The impact of the laser on the object protected by the paste was equal to zero. According to rumors, even the hand was smeared with this substance, which was then heated with the same blowtorch - and for several minutes the thermal effect on the palm was quite bearable!
Additional tests were carried out at the White Sands Missile Range in the United States and the Atomic Range on Pholness Island in the United Kingdom. The arc lamp also made no impression on Starlite: as long as the surface temperature did not exceed 1,000 ˚C, the material effectively protected the object to which it was applied. The results were published in the International Defense Review - and … that's it.
Airgel is an excellent thermal insulator, but it cannot be applied to any surface as thin as Starlite. And it costs an incredible amount.
In response to all the questions about the composition, Maurice Ward said only that Starlite includes 21 components. Moreover, every time he provided material with a slightly different chemical composition - so that researchers from the UK Department of Defense did not even try to find out the exact formula against the will of the inventor. Years of testing have led scientists in contact with Ward to believe it is 90% organic, possibly with ceramic components and borates. An attempt at scientific discussions with Ward failed: he was simply not educated enough, his tirades about this substance in the scientific sense were gibberish. Emissaries from big business who came to him, including Boeing, were stunned by his manner of asking £ 1 million today, and tomorrow to correct this figure in the draft contract, adding a zero to it on the right. All this (as well as the rejection of preliminary tests of the Starlite composition) led to the fact that no one was able to either agree with the inventor to start production, or simply steal the composition.
Here's another curious moment: when scientists representing the defense industry somehow tested the material in the Cavendish Laboratory (UK), it turned out that in terms of thermal conductivity, this is, to put it mildly, not a star. Its level turned out to be approximately equal to the thermal conductivity of rubber and was far behind the indicators of, say, expanded polystyrene.
Hence, there was something else. We know in part what it is. During thermal tests - and only during them - the material changed. The scanning electron microscope showed that after testing its surface was covered with a network of pores with a diameter of 2 to 5 microns. These pores acted like air bubbles in expanded polystyrene, dramatically increasing thermal resistance - about an order of magnitude compared to conventional, unheated Starlite. At the same time, the pores remained too small to destroy the layer of this initially plastic material or reduce its ability to reflect heat from its own surface.
“Ward did - and he didn't know about it until I told him - a composite material with a preprogrammed 'smart' thermal protection mechanism,” said Keith Lewis. "Something like a piezoelectric material that changes its properties depending on external conditions." So to speak, a metamaterial obtained at the level of medieval technology. Ward recalled that he received the first batch of the substance with the help of a food processor, and his chemical knowledge, according to experts, was significantly inferior to the level of Paracelsus.
We know something vaguely similar from the “swollen” paint that protects some structural elements of buildings - for example, steel supports. In the event of a fire, such paint, when heated, increases in volume, which reduces thermal conductivity. However, it mainly acts as a heat insulator and does not conduct heat away from the protected object at all, as Starlite did. In addition, such a composition ceases to function even before 1000 ˚C. And when "swollen", like many fire retardants, it releases a lot of toxic substances. Starlite did not emit any gases during the tests that could be detected. It is clear that the first type of materials cannot be used in fireproof ceilings (for example, in the cabin of an aircraft), but Starlite is completely.
And here's the bottom line. Despite Ward's words that his family would have a secret in the event of his death, there is no evidence of this, although Ward's widow has stated that she does not want to disclose her plans for further use of Starlite. If she really had such plans, it is difficult to imagine how they could be hidden …
Why couldn't anyone come to an agreement with the inventor? It is difficult to agree with those who blame everything on his closeness. We've all read about how Ford appropriated the achievements of the developer of "his" car; we all know that the theft of inventions is inseparable from the world of modern technology. The statements of Boeing employees that they could not invest in a risky (without a preliminary analysis of the chemical properties of the material) enterprise look ridiculous. The number of initially stillborn projects for which the company threw out more than $ 100 million is no secret to anyone. Mistakes are common in big business. Even the recently dying General Motors allowed itself such a notorious failure as the launch of the Chevrolet Volt.
Rather, the point is that modern patent law generally makes the life of a lone inventor difficult compared to the life of corporations with packs of specially trained specialists. Obviously, any of the 21 components (if there really were so many) could be superfluous or could be successfully replaced by a more efficient analogue. It is clear that the corrected mixture could easily be patented as a separate composite - and Ward's rights would be equal in weight to a feather.
Will we see Starlite again, sponsored by some other ex-hairdresser? This is theoretically possible. Let's remind: after the first motor ship was thrown into the dustbin of history, only half a century passed, and the diesel still became the backbone of water transport. That is, sooner or later … In general, let's not lose hope!