The recent (re-)discovery of x-ray emission from unwinding scotch tape under vacuum makes me wonder how this phenomenon might be used. It would be interesting to see the emission spectrum. No doubt the physics boys at UCLA are pumpin’ out patents like pellets out of the back end of a rabbit.
The researchers report that duct tape does not provide the same effect as 3M Scotch tape. From the International Herald Tribune–
The tape phenomenon could also lead to simple medical devices using bursts of electrons to destroy tumors. The scientists are looking to patent their ideas.
And finally, there’s the possibility of nuclear fusion. If the energy from the breaking adhesive could be directed away from the electrons to heavy hydrogen ions implanted in modified tape, the ions would accelerate fast enough so that when they collided, they could fuse together and give off energy — the same process that lights the sun.
Good God. We’re extrapolating this finding into solutions for the energy crisis and cancer already!
The UCLA folks say that the Russians reported x-ray emission from tape in 1953, but nobody believed them. Could be a novelty-buster. Hmmm. I wonder if my Post-It notes will emit x-rays in vacuo too?
I’ll wager that at this very moment, a group of industrious Poindexters at two or three national weapons labs are trying to weaponize triboelectric x-rays. Project BIG STICKY.
Here is a “Novelty Buster” for the public domain– What would high Z additives in the tape composition do to the x-ray output? Seems to me that the heaviest atom naturally in Scotch tape would be silicon in the release backing layer. What if they grafted some heavy metal bearing monomers (metal chelates with a vinyl or other monomer moiety) into the composition somewhere? Would that affect the output spectrum?
Lamentations on Chemistry 
I’m surprised that duct tape came up negative, as the report that I saw (actually, only the abstract from Nature) stated that the X-rays were correlated to the stick-slip phenomenon, something that duct tape has in spades (as does masking tape, box sealing tape and any other noisy tape). So that leaves chemistry. Scotch tape is an acrylate while the others that I just rambled off are rubber based (both synthetic and natural). Interesting…
Reality is breaking down. It’s just a flaw in the matrix. A glitch in the ZORT-3000 supercomputer in another universe.
Pshha! Scotch tape releasing x-rays!
Diddle the HOMO and LUMO of backing and adhesive to engineer the energy gap. Adding powdered dipole electret filler to the adhesive with electostatic orientation during coating re sandpaper. A dielectric heavy element polymer could be acrylic resin with triphenylbismuth, lead methacrylate 2-ethylhexanoate; polystyrene with vinylphenyl diphenylbismuth, etc.
40 wt-% solution of triphenyl bismuth in THF containing dissolved poly(methyl methacrylate) can be cast as a film, US Pat 5256334, 4882392. One expects the low-Tg adhesive can be so doped.
All that lacks is vicious legislation barring private ownership of adhesive tape.
This is very very ominous. I ties into the following phenomena concerning wintergreen mints.
http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/question505.htm
What if they release x-rays as well? it may very well be the origin of many mouth cancers.
And friction between wool fibers is pretty crackly and tingly, leading to my hypothesis that many cancers from the sternum up may be attributed to wearing clothing
Solution: NUDITY!
So where’s my Nobel prize? I mean they give it to guys who make glowing green gunk.
Imagine I found a gourd in the Brazilian rainforest that, when eaten raw cleared up my acne.
This is not patentable under US law because it is not a composition of matter INVENTED by man.
If I take the same gourd, and through a lot of fancy dancy chromatography isolate and characterize the molecule which produces the anti-acne effect I have thus, INVENTED something- Because the molecule does not exist by itself in the natural world.
The effect of the gourd was known, yet the precise reason not identified until the intervention of the inventor.
I have spoken