More Nanotechnology… This Time in a Golf Ball

January 3, 2008 admin 592 Views

Yesterday I authored a post regarding irons with a nanocrystalline plating on their nonmetallic face. Keeping with the theme… an interesting “nano” related golf ball patent issued to Acushnet on January 1st. The patent is USPN 7314896 titled “Nano-Particulate Blends with Fully-Neutralized Ionomeric Polymers for Golf Ball Layers” and describes the invention as:

A golf ball comprising a core, an intermediate layer, and a cover. The core, which has a compression of 100 or less and a diameter of between about 1.00 inches and about 1.64 inches, is formed from a first polymer including an acid group fully-neutralized by a salt of an organic acid, a cation source, or a suitable base of the organic acid; and a nano-material having an average particle size of 100 nm or less, present in an amount sufficient to adjust at least one material property of the first polymer by 5% to 50% when compared to the material property of the first polymer comprising a material identical to the nano-material but having an average particle size greater than 1000 nm. The intermediate layer is formed from a second polymer comprising an acid group fully-neutralized by a salt of an organic acid, a cation source, or a suitable base of the organic acid.

Wow, that is a mouthful… and explains why I don’t do too many golf ball patent posts… because they would put most of the Golf-Patents readers to sleep! Still pretty interesting.

Dave Dawsey – Watching NanoTech Golf Patents

PS – I was surprised to see that a quick search of patents issued in 2007
revealed just 6 patents containing some variation of “nano” and “golf”
in the abstract. (abst/nano$ and abst/golf and
ISD/1/1/2007->12/31/2007)