New materials are being developed all the time and this time researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have hit the jackpot. The new material that’s been developed by the team is one of the strongest, lightweight materials on the Earth and is said to be ten times stronger than steel, with just 5 percent of its density.
The material is based on graphene and is made by compressing and fusing flakes of it using both extreme heat and pressure. Showcased this month in the journal Science Advances, this new graphene material could change the world. Researcher Zhao Qin said, “The curvature of the surface in the 3D space is caused by the 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.”
Researchers created the material in the MIT lab using a high-resolution 3D printer that was capable of dealing with multi-materials.The fact that the material is 3D already makes it so much better than the standard 2D graphene sheets that are already available. Qin states, “Having the ability to design and predict the mechanical function of such porous 3D carbon material will allow us to reach a series of lightweight bulk materials, with known density and mechanical functions, for wide engineering applications.”
Qin continues, “These applications in architecture, infrastructure, and the building world, in general, may eventually help to reduce the usage of the conventional materials, such as steel, and hence effectively reduce the building weight and handling labor cost. The high strength and high chemical resistance of such carbon materials can also help to make architecture and infrastructure more resilient.” So, you can be certain we’ll be seeing much more of graphene over the next few months in various applications, whether it’s the 2D or 3D version. And who knows, we may even see graphene houses popping up in the next five years.
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