MIT RESEARCHERS HAVE DEVELOPED A SPONGELIKE MATERIAL 10 TIMES STRONGER THAN STEEL

Source: Digital Trends

MIT RESEARCHERS HAVE DEVELOPED A SPONGELIKE MATERIAL 10 TIMES STRONGER THAN STEEL
By Luke Dormehl — January 10, 2017 12:15 PM





Stainless steel? Don’t make us laugh! A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has just developed one of the strongest lightweight materials known to man, woman and, well, frankly every living creature on Earth. Formed by compressing and fusing flakes of graphene using a combination of heat and pressure, the resulting creation boasts a sponge-like configuration with just 5 percent density of steel — but 10 times its strength.

Based on all-around wonder material graphene, MIT’s new discovery is described this month in the journal Science Advances. The new 3D graphene material has a labyrinthine structure composed of a continuous surface of its 2D counterpart.

“The curvature of the surface in the 3D space is caused by distribution of pentagon and heptagon rings in (a) certain way, making the geometry feature different from planar 2D graphene, which is composed of carbon atoms that are arranged in hexagonal rings,” researcher Zhao Qin told Digital Trends.

The material was created in a lab at MIT using a high-resolution, multi-material 3D printer.



Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/mit-material-10x-steel/#ixzz4VPI0HkhW