| TECHNOLOGY |
Co.'s Pres. says he and his colleagues were thinking about car tires--not tennis balls--when they first started work on an impermeable coating based on nanoclays.
BELIEVERS Goldberg (left) and Feeney are developing nanocomposites to make better tennis balls and car tires. INMAT PHOTO
What started as a project to keep tires from losing air has instead led to the creation of a tennis ball that maintains its bounce while others go flat. Co. prepares its coatings as an aqueous dispersion of exfoliated vermiculite and butyl rubber. As the dispersion dries inside tennis ball, the clay forms thin, overlapping sheets that serve as an impenetrable air barrier.
To maintain flexibility, the clay content can go only as high as 20%. But this concentration still allows the formation of a 20-micro-m -thick layer with the same air retention as a much thicker and heavier butyl rubber sheet.
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