Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

n2doc

(47,953 posts)
Fri Jul 13, 2012, 05:42 PM Jul 2012

New lightest material ever barely even exists

By Evan Ackerman




For a long time, aerogel was the lightest and least dense material ever made. Late last year, a metallic lattice structure took the crown. And today, the new champion is officially aerographite, with a density so low that it barely exists at all.

The density of aerographite is a mere 0.2 milligram per cubic centimeter. For the record, the next best thing (those metallic lattice structures) are three times heavier at about 0.9 milligram per cubic centimeter. This stuff is more or less entirely made out of air, with what little structure there is consisting of a network of hollow carbon tubes grown at nano and micro scales, which you can see in the electron microscope image above. A clump of it would look something like black sponge, appearing completely opaque despite its absurdly low density (unlike aerogel).

Despite the fragile look, aerographite has some impressive structural properties. You can compress it down to make it 1,000 times smaller, and it'll spring right back to its original size when you let go. It can also support over 40,000 times its own weight, which is 35 times better than aerogel can do.

Aerographite was created by researchers at Hamburg University of Technology and the University of Kiel, who suggest that a good application for this stuff might be as "electrode materials for the increasing demand of batteries and high surface area supercapacitor materials." That's fine, I guess, but just tell me how much it'll cost me to get a blob of aerographite to mess with on my own.
http://dvice.com/archives/2012/07/new-lightest-ma.php

11 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
New lightest material ever barely even exists (Original Post) n2doc Jul 2012 OP
someone needs to teach the writer simple arithmetic tk2kewl Jul 2012 #1
Is there anything nanotech cannot do? longship Jul 2012 #2
This is the future, right here! Odin2005 Jul 2012 #4
It looks like frozen smoke. Callmecrazy Jul 2012 #3
Not to sully the good feelings too much . . . caseymoz Jul 2012 #5
... Soylent Brice Jul 2012 #6
Yep. (nt) Posteritatis Jul 2012 #10
Air has density 1.3 mg/cc at sea level muriel_volestrangler Jul 2012 #7
Heck, I thought it was Bush's Brain,,,,nt benld74 Jul 2012 #8
Nah - Bush's brain makes lead look feather-like Plucketeer Jul 2012 #9
I thought it was Rmoney's economic plan. Motown_Johnny Jul 2012 #11
 

tk2kewl

(18,133 posts)
1. someone needs to teach the writer simple arithmetic
Fri Jul 13, 2012, 05:53 PM
Jul 2012

If the next lightest material is 0.9mg/ml then it would be 4.5 times heavier than something 0.2mg/ml not 3 times.

caseymoz

(5,763 posts)
5. Not to sully the good feelings too much . . .
Sat Jul 14, 2012, 02:24 AM
Jul 2012

. . . but if it's so light you could easily inhale it into your lungs, how toxic is it? It seems to me that use of it will be limited by that.

Some might also ask, can you get high off it?

muriel_volestrangler

(101,321 posts)
7. Air has density 1.3 mg/cc at sea level
Sat Jul 14, 2012, 08:46 AM
Jul 2012
Air: 1.229 kg/m3

1 cubic metre = 100x100x100 cubic centimetres = 1,000,000 cc
1 kg = 1000 g = 1,000,000 milligrams

So sea level air is 1.3 mg/cc. It's less than 20% denser than the air in the gaps!

ETA: Wikipedia has some more numbers; they can make it in a variety of densities. A denser version, at 8.5 mg/cc, has an ultimate tensile strength of 160 kPa, compared to an aerogel of density 100 mg/cc, which just has 16 kPa. Ten times as strong, and under a tenth of the weight!
Latest Discussions»Culture Forums»Science»New lightest material eve...