I once heard of a revolutionary polymer made of 21 generic, over the counter, comonplace materials, that could withstand enormous amount of heat. All I remember is that the inventor was a hairdresser from the UK, who lost his wife in a plane crash. The commuter plane crashed because of bad heat insulation. After that, he went to work in his basement and came up with starlite. It came in two forms, a solid, and a paste that could be smeared on anything. The demonstration on the first "QVC" type informercial showed that, you could cover a egg with a thin coat of star-lite and it would still be room temp, after you expose it to flame from a torch. NASA, also ran some tests on the material. It did better then the ceramic tiles on the space shuttle in every test. The arch-plasma torch, simulated nuclear flash, it did fine. It was also a fairly strong material, since the plasma torch exerts tons of preasure per square inch. I recall there was also a show about the man and the material, on one of those new shows like 60 minutes, or dateline. The inventor, was approached by everyone in aerospace, for the recipe. So:Whatever happened to Star-lite?
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Put in Google Starlite Heat shield and came up with starlitesystems.co.uk. Don't know if that helps you.
I have a similar thing I have always wondered about. Years ago I read about a material that if you dropped an egg from two stories onto it, the egg would not break because it absorbed all of the energy. Wouldn't that be great as bumper material for cars.
I don't know about 2 stories, but I've seen materials like that. I believe they are called Aerogels. A gel made mostly from air. Nasa already has use of something like that already too. I also have to wonder what happened to allumaloy. That was a kind of welding sodder that you could use to make strong welds with just a simple torch. The metal (steel, aluminum, whatever) just had to be heated to over 260' and it would melt right to it, and could make a better then new weld. The infomercial also demonstrated how you could use it to fabricate materials using molds, and such. Something else has also been taken off the market, -a thermal plate. You place something frozen on it and it thaws it out faster then a microwave. The plate looks like a simple frying pan, but has some special coating on it that somehow wicks away cold temperatures. I would think a material like this would have other industrial applications as well, and has since been banned from public market. I have to suppose that there are many such inovations that may not happen anytime soon because A:)too ahead of it's time, B:)it might take away bussiness from exsisting industries C:)some people don't want things like that for everyday folks. (indistructible cars, or whatever)
I went to this site...http://www.starlitesystems.co.uk/ and found a "Hydroponics and Head Superstore"
This site discusses Starlite and what might have happened to it...http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/farout/story/0,13028,1187576,00.html
You can find info about and purchase Alumaloy here...http://www.alumaloy.net/Pretty interesting stuff. Note it melts at 728F, and they also carry Castaloy (500F) for cast iron repairs and Steelaloy (500F) for steel repairs.
or you can Google "alumaloy" and find other sites that also sell it
I found the "Thaw Plate" for $14.99 here...http://www.funtimes.com/homexpo/astv3.html
I found "thaw plate" using http://www.dogpile.com and found a few other references too
When I was in JA in high school (1968), we made plastic plaques from a resin called "Wonder Cast." it was mixed half-and-half with water, stirred with an electric drill until it began to foam, then poured into molds. In a short while it had cured hard as- uh, plastic. I haven't run across anything like it since. I assume it wasn't a raging success. Maybe StarLite simply didn't sell.
In April 1993 there were numerous articles on Starlite
Click here to see a web site dedicated to information on Starlite.
Click here to read the Business Week article, August 16, 1993, page 100 on Starlite and what Penn State University Professor Roy has to say about Startlite
Click here to see an article from 1993 on Starlite.
At the first link are links to several different groups that investigated and reported on Starlite.
That mix-with-water-foam-plastic is I believe polyurethane. I think you can still get it, as an adhesive, and in those cans of spray foam insulation. PU is now used for trim and architectural detials now also.
Well, I know this comment comes a little late. Maurice Ward, the inventor of Starlite, did not invent his Starlite material because his wife died in a commuter plane crash due to heat insulation problems, it was a commercial airliner crash. The crash wasn't fatal; it was the burning plastic materials inside the plane that caused toxic fumes and smoke to kill the passengers, many of which were indeed children. Maurice Ward waited for years trying to market his invention, but could not find any partners in the United Kingdom. It was not the millions of dollars that interested him, it was in maintaining 51% control of the business so that it would not become corrupted or misused. There were no, 0, takers in the U.K, although one company did offer him $13million pounds sterling (about US$20million) and 45% control; he turned it down on the control issue. However, recently NASA has made a deal with Mr. Ward where he maintains control of the manufacture of his plastic; NASA is considering using this plastic in its next generation of space vehicles for: reentry heat shielding; interior shielding of the capsules, particularly as escape capsule that won't burn (the Challenger victims very well could have survived the explosion if the inside of the capsule had been properly fireproofed); and as a protective coating/insulation on the wiring of their spacecraft. If you ever get around to reading this, you may want to do some recent research on Mr. Maurice Ward; also of interest might be Mr. Troy Hurtubise, inventor of the Ursus Suit (and now, the next generation Trojan Suit, a suit of bullet-proof, fire-proof, explosion-proof armor that looks remarkably like Master Chief's suit in the game Halo). Like Mr. Ward's Starlite Plastic, Mr. Hurtubise's polymers are resistant to all kinds of damage, including machinegun fire, blunt trauma, and even cutting and piercing attacks.