Last week Daedalus devised his ‘Stressed Powder’, whose tiny ring-particles were needle crystals bent into a highly strained circular form. A suitable shock, rupturing the tense rings, releases their enormous energy density. DREADCO's chemists are now crystallizing many different substances as Stressed Powders, and exploring their properties.

Hard materials such as metal oxides should, if undisturbed, hold their stress indefinitely. Daedalus hopes to exploit such Stressed Powders as long-lasting, non-chemical insecticides. He points out that insects, being so small, are greatly at risk of dehydration. Even a minute crack in their exoskeletal armour allows their vital fluids to evaporate. If the Stressed Powder were scattered around their living space, they would inevitably set off a few grains of it in their wanderings. Each grain would explode like a tiny landmine, firing its crystal fragments at enormous velocity and lethally puncturing the insect's exoskeleton. No nasty chemical residues would remain. To human hands, the powder would be annoyingly prickly, but would pose no serious threat. Like land-mines themselves, the powder would remain lethal for years.

Softer materials, such as salt and sugar, would as Stressed Powders slowly creep and relax their tension. But if used promptly they would dissolve in soup or tea with a vigorous release of energy. The resulting drink would be heated almost to boiling point, creating a new ‘instant’ product. In the same way, many industrial chemicals might be crystallized in stressed form. Like ‘nascent’ hydrogen, they should be extremely reactive. They would speed up many reactions, and perhaps undergo new ones. Indeed, even an inert Stressed Powder could be chemically useful. In a solvent that crazed or weakened its crystals, it would break up with intense local heat and vigour. It might catalyse many otherwise tricky reactions, both by its energy, as with ultrasound, and by the sudden release of a vast amount of new surface as its particles disintegrate.

For the ultimate in energy density, Daedalus recommends stressed carbon nanotubes. A nanotube bent into a tiny toroid, and thickened by deposition of sucessive sleeves of carbon, could store far more energy than dynamite. And its explosive disintegration would release a vast amount of active carbon surface. Sadly, even DREADCO's redoubtable chemists can see no way of making Stressed Nanotube Powder.