The BMW X6 With VB

 

BMW X6 vb side

The BMW VB X6

The BMW X6 show car was coated with the Vantablack variant VBx2, originally developed for the fields of architecture and science. This absolute black pigment has a total hemispheric reflection of one percent, which is why it is considered an exceptional black. It has a lower reflection from any angle. The great advantage of vantablack s-vis is that it can be vaporized.

1 What is VantaBlack

Vantablack is a brand of super black coatings with a total hemispheric reflectivity (THR) of less than 1.5% in the visible spectrum. The original Vantablack coating was obtained by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) developed by Surrey NanoSystems in the UK. It is one of the darkest coatings known, absorbing up to 99.965% of visible light (at 663 nm if the light is perpendicular to the material).

Vantablack is not a color or a lacquer, but a coating made of carbon nanotubes. Each of these nanotubes has the ability to absorb light almost completely. When placed in front of a black background, Vantablack colored objects seem to disappear without the depth of field effect.Therefore The human eye perceives Vantablack-clad shapes as two-dimensional.

2 The Composition Of VantaBlack

Vantablack is a material made of carbon nanotubes, which hardly reflects light at all. It is considered to be the darkest pigment in the world. The rights to this product belong to Surrey NanoSystems, which developed this absolute black pigment for the aerospace industry. Vanta stands for Vertically Aligned Nano Tube Array.

Vantablack CVD (chemical vapour deposition) is an improvement over similar substances developed at the time. Vantablack absorbs up to 99.965% of visible light and can be created at 400 °C (752 °F). NASA had already developed a similar substance grown at 750°C (1,380°F). So it needed materials that were more heat resistant than Vantablack.

3 The unique BMW X6 Painted with VantaBlack

Dressed in the car paint in absolute black, the BMW X6 is a unique piece, as never before has a car been lacquered in Vantablack. In collaboration with Surrey NanoSystems, the company that developed this black, a real eye-catcher was created. "In the past, we have turned down countless requests from car manufacturers," says Ben Jensen, inventor of Vantablack and founder of Surrey NanoSystems, when asked about this cooperation. It wasn't until the BMW X6 that the company felt it had found the right vehicle for this experiment.

Originally, this technology was developed for space travel. Vantablack absolute black is processed at a temperature starting at 430 degrees Celsius, which allows it to be applied to delicate materials like aluminum. Lenses treated with Vantablack make faint stars and distant galaxies visible, as stray rays from the sun hardly stand a chance against this high-tech material.

The collaboration with BMW has made it possible to highlight the design elements of the BMW X6, such as the illuminated grille, the double headlights and the iconic rear lights. All of which contrast strikingly with the light-absorbing carbon Vantablack paint.

For designer Hussein Al Attar, the appeal of this unusual project lies in these features. The pigment also opened up a whole new world of possibilities for the designers. When creating the show car, they were able to focus on silhouettes and proportions, without taking into account reflections and the play of light and shadow.

BMW X6 vb Front

4 Is it possible to buy Vantablack?

The show car will remain a one-off, as making the world's blackest black compatible with use in the everyday automotive world is a huge challenge. Using Vantablack paint in black black would also be extremely expensive, not to mention the safety issues in road traffic. However, the technology will be interesting in the field of laser-based sensor systems and thus in autonomous driving.

BMW X6 vb Side