The material is 7 times lighter than air. Ten unique artificial materials with incredible properties. memory metal
Graphene aerogel is the most light artificial material on the ground
Chinese scientists from Zhejiang University have created the most lightweight material in a world called graphene airgel. It is seven times lighter than air and 12% lighter than the previous champion in this indicator - aerographite (aerographite). One cubic centimeter of airgel weighs 0.16 milligrams, that is cubic meter this super light material weighs only 160 grams! Graphene aerogel is so light that a 3x3x3 cm cube can be balanced on a thin blade of grass, flower stamen or fluffy dandelion seeds.
The lightest material in the world
The researchers say there is no limit to the size of objects made from airgel. new material It has excellent elasticity and the ability to absorb various liquid substances. Graphene airgel fully recovers to its original shape after more than 90% compression. Also, it quickly (68.8 grams per second) is able to absorb liquid, the weight of which is 900 times its own weight. Taking into account the described characteristics of the new ultra-light material, it can be used, for example, to collect oil in the places of its spill.
In short, the future has already arrived.
Scientists are modern wizards who show tricks in laboratories that refute the laws of physics.
"Smart" substances change shape under the influence external conditions, turn from a gas into a solid metal or freeze at high temperature.
Hydrophobic materials
A magical coating that protects against water, dirt and other liquids, created on the basis of nanoparticles - silicon dioxide and titanium. The novelty did not linger in laboratories and is actively used as hydrophobic sprays and gels for clothes, shoes, tablecloths, building materials, and even for sea water purification.
A gas that holds objects like water
Hexafluoride, or SF6, is 5 times heavier than air. It does not volatilize from the vessel and holds light objects. Now you know how the floating effect is created. Hexafluoride has another funny property - lowering the voice to bass. One breath and you sound like Darth Vader.
Metal that melts in your hands
We remember liquid metals from physics lessons, but metals that melt at body temperature are something new. Miracles do not end there: gallium objects dissolve before our eyes in hot water.
When in contact with gallium, aluminum becomes brittle - take care of your iPhone. But even such an unstable material in the form of an alloy is used in the field of high technology.
Exploding Powder
Triode nitride and silver fulminate have not yet found industrial applications. These powders are even dangerous to transport: they explode on impact or shock and turn into a cloud of bright smoke. Effective but useless.
memory metal
Items made of nitinol - an alloy of titanium and nickel - are able to "remember" their original shape and return to it when heated. I would like such a memory!
Programmable Tree
Who would have thought that among the "smart" materials would be ... a tree! Specialists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology using 4D printing (which is already a miracle!) Have created wooden plates that take on a given shape when wet.
Hot Ice
It is actually sodium acetate, which turns from liquid to crystals at the slightest impact. Outwardly indistinguishable from ordinary ice, there are even patterns on the surface. But it's actually warm. It is this material that is hidden in chemical heating pads.
Hydrogel
The material is used in medicine: it is able to change size under the influence of temperature. It seems that he is alive!
Self-healing materials
Miracle substances that are immune to damage are already being used in smartphone coatings, building materials and medicine. The whole secret is in microcapsules with bacteria that are activated when damaged and fill the cracks with the products of their vital activity. Someday our roads will be like this asphalt.
Super strong material that is 7.5 times lighter than air
Airgel is an innovative graphene-based material that has unique properties: it is hard, transparent, heat-resistant and extremely poorly transmits heat. Its density is only 1.5 times the density of air and 500 times less than the density of water. It is also one of the most expensive materials: a palm-sized piece costs about $100.
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Scientists are modern wizards who show tricks in laboratories that refute the laws of physics. "Smart" substances change shape under the influence of external conditions, turn from a gas into a solid metal, or freeze at high temperatures.
website collected 9 miracle substances to show you: the future has already arrived.
Hydrophobic materials
A magical coating that protects against water, dirt and other liquids, created on the basis of nanoparticles - silicon dioxide and titanium. The novelty did not stay in the laboratories and actively used as hydrophobic sprays and gels for clothes, shoes, tablecloths, building materials and even for sea water purification.
A gas that holds objects like water
Hexafluoride, or SF6, is 5 times heavier than air. It does not volatilize from the vessel and holds light objects. Now you know how the floating effect is created. Hexafluoride has another funny property - lower one's voice to bass. One breath and you sound like Darth Vader.
Metal that melts in your hands
We remember liquid metals from physics lessons, but metals that melt at body temperature are something new. The miracles don't end there. gallium objects dissolve before our eyes in hot water.
When in contact with gallium, aluminum becomes brittle - take care of your iPhone. But even such an unstable material in the form of an alloy is used in the field of high technology.
Exploding Powder
Triode nitride and silver fulminate have not yet found industrial applications. These powders are even dangerous to transport: they explode on impact or impact and turn into a cloud of bright smoke. Effective but useless.
memory metal
Items made of nitinol - an alloy of titanium and nickel - are able to "remember" their original shape and return to it when heated. I would like such a memory!
Programmable Tree
Who would have thought that among the "smart" materials would be ... wood! Specialists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the help of 4D printing(which is already a miracle!) created wooden plates that take on a given shape when wet.
Hot Ice
It's actually sodium acetate, which turns from liquid to crystals at the slightest impact. Outwardly, it is indistinguishable from ordinary ice, there are even patterns on the surface. But it's actually warm. It is this material that is hidden in chemical heating pads.
Despite the huge variety of substances and minerals created by nature, man, thanks to the use of the latest technologies, constantly invents his own and such that their properties are simply incredible. Here and now, I will talk about the ten most famous.
There was a time when dishwashing detergent did not exist - people got by with baking soda, vinegar, silver sand, rubbing or a wire brush, but the new product will help save a lot of time and effort and generally make washing dishes a thing of the past. " Liquid glass"contains silicon dioxide, which forms a material when interacting with water or ethanol, which then dries, turning into a thin (more than 500 times thinner than a human hair) layer of elastic, ultra-resistant, non-toxic and water-repellent glass.
With this material, there is no need for cleaners and disinfectants, as it is able to perfectly protect the surface from germs: bacteria on the surface of dishes or sinks are simply isolated. Also, the invention will find application in medicine, because now it is possible to sterilize instruments using only hot water without the use of chemical disinfectants.
This coating can be used to fight fungal infections on plants and seal bottles, its properties are truly unique - it repels moisture, disinfects, while remaining elastic, durable, breathable, and completely invisible, as well as cheap.
This substance allows golfers to hit the ball harder, increases bullet damage, and prolongs the life of scalpels and engine parts.
Contrary to its name, the material combines the strength of metal and the hardness of the glass surface: the video shows how the deformation of steel and shapeless metal differs when a metal ball falls. The ball leaves many small "holes" on the surface of the steel - this means that the metal absorbs and dissipates the impact energy. Shapeless metal remains smooth, which means it returns impact energy better, which is also indicated by a longer rebound.
Most metals have an ordered crystalline molecular structure, and from an impact or other impact, the crystal lattice is distorted, which is why dents remain on the metal. In a shapeless metal, the atoms are arranged randomly, so after exposure, the atoms return to their original position.
3. Single side bulletproof glass
The richest people have problems: judging by the growing sales of this material, they need bulletproof glass that would save lives, but not prevent them from shooting back.
This glass stops bullets on one side, but at the same time passes them on the other - this unusual effect lies in the "sandwich" of a fragile acrylic layer and a softer elastic polycarbonate: under pressure, acrylic manifests itself as a very hard substance, and when a bullet hits it, it extinguishes its energy, cracking at the same time. This allows the shock-absorbing layer to withstand the impact of a bullet and acrylic fragments without collapsing.
When fired from the other side, the resilient polycarbonate allows the bullet to pass through itself, stretching and destroying the brittle acrylic layer, which leaves no further barrier for the bullet, but do not shoot too often, as this will create holes in the protection.
This is a plastic that can withstand incredibly high temperatures: its thermal threshold is so high that at first they simply did not believe the inventor. Only after demonstrating the capabilities of the material live on television, the staff of the British Atomic Weapons Center contacted the creator of the starlit.
The scientists irradiated the plastic with flashes of heat equivalent to the power of 75 bombs dropped on Hiroshima - the sample was only slightly charred. One of the testers noted: “Usually you have to wait several hours between flashes for the material to cool. Now we irradiated him every 10 minutes, and he remained unharmed, as if in mockery.
Unlike other heat-resistant materials, Starlite does not become toxic at high temperatures, and it is also incredibly lightweight. It can be used in the construction of spacecraft, aircraft, flame retardant suits or in the military industry, but, unfortunately, starlite never left the laboratory: its creator Morris Ward died in 2011 without patenting his invention and without leaving any descriptions . All that is known about the structure of starlite is that it contains 21 organic polymers, several copolymers and a small amount of ceramics.
Imagine a porous substance of such low density that 2.5 cm³ of it contains surfaces comparable to the size of a football field. But it's not a specific material, but rather a class of substances: airgel is a form that some materials can take, and its ultra-low density makes it an excellent thermal insulator. If you make a 2.5 cm thick window out of it, it will have the same thermal insulation properties as a 25 cm thick glass window.
All the lightest materials in the world are aerogels: for example, quartz airgel (essentially dried silicone) is only three times heavier than air and is quite fragile, but it can withstand a weight 1000 times its own. Graphene airgel (pictured above) is made of carbon, and its solid component is seven times lighter than air: having a porous structure, this substance repels water, but absorbs oil - it is supposed to be used to combat oil slicks on the surface of the water.
In fact, these are sheets of carbon one atom thick, rolled into cylinders - their molecular structure resembles a roll of wire mesh, and this is the most durable material, known to science. Six times lighter but hundreds of times stronger than steel, nanotubes have better thermal conductivity than diamond and conduct electricity more efficiently than copper.
The tubes themselves are not visible to the naked eye, and in its raw form, the substance resembles soot: in order to manifest its extraordinary properties, trillions of these invisible threads must be made to rotate, which has become possible relatively recently.
The material can be used in the production of a cable for the “elevator to space” project, which was developed quite a long time ago, but until recently it was completely fantastic due to the impossibility of creating a cable 100 thousand km long that would not bend under its own weight.
Carbon nanotubes also help in the treatment of breast cancer - they can be placed in each cell by the thousands, and the presence folic acid allows you to identify and "capture" cancerous growths, then the nanotubes are irradiated with an infrared laser, and the tumor cells die. Also, the material can be used in the production of light and durable bulletproof vests…
In 1942, the British faced the problem of a lack of steel for the construction of aircraft carriers needed to fight German submarines. Geoffrey Pike suggested building huge floating airfields from ice, but it did not justify itself: although ice is inexpensive, it is short-lived. Everything changed with the discovery by New York scientists of the extraordinary properties of a mixture of ice and sawdust, which was similar in strength to brick, and also does not crack or melt. But the material could be processed like wood or melted like metal, sawdust swelled in water, forming a shell and preventing ice from melting, due to which any ship could be repaired right during the voyage.
But for all positive qualities, pykrete was of little use for effective use: to build and create an ice cover for a ship weighing up to 1000 tons, an engine with a capacity of one horsepower, but at temperatures above -26 ° C (and a complex cooling system is required to maintain it), ice tends to sag. In addition, cellulose, also used in paper making, was in short supply, so pykrete remained an unfeasible project.
Resistance to mechanical impact at all times was one of the main problems of materials science, until they invented D3o - a substance whose molecules are in free movement under normal conditions and are fixed upon impact. The structure of D3o resembles a mixture of corn starch and water, which is sometimes filled with pools. Special jackets made of this material, which are comfortable and provide protection from falls, bats or fists that you may get, are already on the market. Protective elements are not visible from the outside, which is suitable for stuntmen and even the police.
Concrete has the property of "tiring" over time - it becomes dirty gray and cracks form in it. If we are talking about the foundation of a building, repairs can be quite time-consuming and expensive, and it is not a fact that it will eliminate “fatigue”: many buildings are demolished precisely because the foundation cannot be restored.
A group of Newcastle University students have developed genetically engineered bacteria that can penetrate deep cracks and produce a mixture of calcium carbonate and glue, strengthening a building. Bacteria are programmed to spread over the surface of the concrete until they reach the edge of the next crack, at which point the production of cementing agent begins, there is even a self-destruction mechanism for bacteria that prevents the formation of useless "growths".
This technology will reduce the anthropogenic emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, because 5% of it is given by concrete production, and it will also help to extend the service life of buildings, the restoration of which traditional way it would cost a lot.
This chemical solvent first appeared as a by-product of cellulose production and was not used until the 60s of the last century, when its medical potential was revealed: Dr. Jacobs discovered that DMSO can easily and painlessly penetrate body tissues - this allows you to quickly and without damage skin to inject various drugs.
His own medicinal properties relieve pain from sprains or, for example, joint inflammation in arthritis, and DMSO can also be used to fight fungal infections.
Unfortunately, when medical properties were discovered, commercial production had long been established, and its widespread availability prevented pharmaceutical companies from making a profit. In addition, DMSO has an unexpected side effect- the smell from the mouth of the person who used it, reminiscent of garlic, so it is used mainly in veterinary medicine.