Chinese scientists have developed the lightest material in the world. Its weight is so small that it is easily held on the flower petals.

The material consists of graphene oxide and lyophilized carbon. The developed spongy matter of graphene airgel weighs some 0.16 mg / cm3, which makes the substance the lightest of the solid materials in the world. As you know, graphene has already brought the Nobel Prize to Andrey Geim and Konstantin Novoselov .

Many more scientific discoveries will be made on the basis of this unique material. Without impurities, graphene is a two-dimensional crystal and is the thinnest man-made material on earth. extremely durable.

One sheet as thick as a plastic bag can support the weight of an elephant. The advantages of graphene do not end there. In addition to strength and lightness, the material is quite flexible. It can be stretched without any damage by 20%. One of the latest properties of graphene identified by scientists is the ability to filter water, retaining various liquids and gases.

The lightest and most extraordinary durable materials called the future of construction. These materials will help create more energy efficient and environmentally friendly facilities in all areas of people's lives - from medical technology to transport.

Among the many innovative materials, which not so long ago seemed just a fantasy, especially advanced and promising are:

3D graphene

Made from pure carbon, this ultra-thin graphene is considered one of the strongest materials on Earth. But recently, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were able to turn two-dimensional graphene into a three-dimensional structure. They created new material with spongy texture. The density of 3D graphene is only 5 percent of the density of steel, but thanks to its special structure, it is 10 times stronger than steel.

According to the creators, 3D graphene has great application potential in many areas.

As for its creation technology, it can be applied to other materials, from polymers to structural concrete. This will allow not only to produce structures that are stronger and lighter, but also having increased insulating properties. In addition, porous structures can be used in water filtration systems or chemical plant waste.

Carbine

Last spring, a group of Austrian researchers successfully synthesized Carbyne, a form of carbon that is the strongest known material and even surpasses graphene.

Carbyne consists of a one-dimensional chain of carbon atoms that is reactive, making it very difficult to synthesize. The inflexible material is believed to be twice as strong as carbon nanotubes. Carbin can be used in nanomechanics, nano- and microelectronics.

Aerographite

Created from a network of porous carbon tubes, airbrush is a synthetic foam. This is one of the easiest construction materials ever created. Aerographite was developed by researchers from the University of Kiel and Technical University Hamburg. Aerographite can be made in various forms, its density is only 180 g/m 3 , which is 75 times lighter than expanded polystyrene. This material can be used in lithium-ion battery electrodes to reduce their weight.

Airbrush

Also known as graphene airgel, it is a lightweight material with a density of only 0.16 mg/cm3, which is 7.5 times less than air. In addition, it is a very elastic material, and it is able to absorb up to 900 times more oils and water than it weighs itself. This property of airbrush is very important: it will be able to absorb oil spills in the oceans.

It has similar properties, which is already being tested by researchers from Argonne.

The lightest material in the world January 8th, 2014

If you follow the news in the world modern technologies, then given material won't be big news to you. However, it is useful to take a closer look at the lightest material in the world and learn a little more detail.

Less than a year ago, the title of the lightest material in the world was given to a material called airbrush. But this material did not manage to hold the palm for a long time, it was intercepted not so long ago by another carbon material called graphene airgel. Created by a research group in the laboratory of the Division of Polymer Science and Technology at Zhejiang University, led by Professor Gao Chao, the ultralight graphene airgel has a density slightly lower than that of helium gas and slightly higher than that of hydrogen gas.

Aerogels, as a class of materials, were developed and produced in 1931 by engineer and chemist Samuel Stephens Kistler. Since then, scientists from various organizations have been researching and developing similar materials, despite their dubious value for practical use. Airgel consisting of multilayer carbon nanotubes, called "frozen smoke" and having a density of 4 mg / cm3, lost the title of the most light material in 2011, which moved to a metal microlattice material having a density of 0.9 mg/cm3. And a year later, the title of the lightest material passed to a carbon material called aerographite, whose density is 0.18 mg / cm3.

The new holder of the title of the lightest material, graphene airgel, created by the team of Professor Chao, has a density of 0.16 mg/cm3. In order to create such lightweight material scientists used one of the most amazing and thin materials today is graphene. Using their experience in creating microscopic materials, such as "one-dimensional" graphene fibers and two-dimensional graphene ribbons, the team decided to add another dimension to the two dimensions of graphene and create a bulk porous graphene material.

Instead of the molding method, which uses a solvent material and which is usually used to produce various aerogels, Chinese scientists have used the freeze-drying method. Sublimation drying of a cooloid solution consisting of a liquid filler and graphene particles made it possible to create a porous carbon sponge, the shape of which almost completely repeated the given shape.

“No need to use templates, the size and shape of the carbon ultralight material we create depends only on the shape and dimensions of the container,” says Professor Chao, “The amount of airgel produced depends only on the size of the container, which can have a volume measured in thousands of cubic centimeters.”

The resulting graphene airgel is an extremely strong and resilient material. It can absorb organic materials, including oil, by weight exceeding 900 times its own weight with high speed absorption. One gram of airgel absorbs 68.8 grams of oil in just one second, making it an attractive material to use as an absorber for oil spilled in the ocean.

In addition to serving as an oil scavenger, graphene airgel has the potential to be used in energy storage systems, as a catalyst for some chemical reactions and as a filler for complex composite materials.

Durable materials have a wide range of uses. There is not only the hardest metal, but also the hardest and strongest wood, as well as the strongest man-made materials.

Where are the most durable materials used?

Heavy-duty materials are used in many areas of life. So, chemists in Ireland and America have developed a technology by which durable textile fibers are produced. The thread of this material is fifty micrometers in diameter. It is created from tens of millions of nanotubes, which are bonded together with the help of a polymer.

The tensile strength of this electrically conductive fiber is three times higher than the strength of the web of the orb-weaving spider. The resulting material is used to make ultra-light body armor and sports equipment. The name of another durable material is ONNEX, created by order of the US Department of Defense. In addition to its use in the production of bulletproof vests, the new material can also be used in flight control systems, sensors, and engines.

There is a technology developed by scientists, thanks to which durable, hard, transparent and light materials are obtained by converting aerogels. On their basis, it is possible to produce lightweight body armor, armor for tanks and durable building materials.

Novosibirsk scientists have invented a plasma reactor of a new principle, thanks to which it is possible to produce nanotubulene - heavy-duty artificial material. This material was discovered twenty years ago. It is a mass of elastic consistency. It consists of plexuses that cannot be seen with the naked eye. The thickness of the walls of these plexuses is one atom.

The fact that the atoms are sort of nested into each other according to the “Russian nesting doll” principle makes nanotubule the most durable material known. When this material is added to concrete, metal, plastic, their strength and electrical conductivity are significantly enhanced. Nanotubulene will help make cars and planes more durable. If the new material comes into wide production, then roads, houses, and equipment can become very durable. It will be very difficult to destroy them. Nanotubulene has not yet been introduced into widespread production due to the very high cost. However, Novosibirsk scientists managed to significantly reduce the cost of this material. Now nanotubulene can be produced not in kilograms, but in tons.

The hardest metal

Among all known metals, chromium is the hardest, but its hardness depends largely on its purity. Its properties are corrosion resistance, heat resistance and refractoriness. Chrome is a whitish-blue metal. Its Brinell hardness is 70-90 kgf/cm2. The melting point of the hardest metal is one thousand nine hundred and seven degrees Celsius at a density of seven thousand two hundred kg / m3. This metal is in earth's crust at a rate of 0.02 percent, which is a lot. It is usually found as chromium ironstone. Chromium is mined from silicate rocks.

This metal is used in industry, smelting chromium steel, nichrome and so on. It is used for anti-corrosion and decorative coatings. Chromium is very rich in stone meteorites falling to Earth.

The most durable tree

There is wood that is stronger than cast iron and can be compared with the strength of iron. We are talking about "Schmidt's Birch". It is also called the Iron Birch. Man knows no more durable wood than this. It was opened by a Russian botanist named Schmidt, while in the Far East.

Wood exceeds the strength of cast iron by one and a half times, the bending strength is approximately equal to the strength of iron. Due to such properties, iron birch could well sometimes replace metal, because this wood is not subject to corrosion and decay. The ship's hull, made of Iron birch, can not even be painted, the ship will not be destroyed by corrosion, the action of acids is also not afraid of it.

Schmidt's birch cannot be pierced by a bullet, you cannot cut it down with an ax. Of all the birches on our planet, it is the Iron Birch that is long-lived - it lives for four hundred years. Its place of growth is the Kedrovaya Pad Nature Reserve. This is a rare protected species, which is listed in the Red Book. If not for such a rarity, the heavy-duty wood of this tree could be used everywhere.

But the tallest trees in the world, sequoias, are not very durable material.

The strongest material in the universe

The most durable and at the same time lightweight material our universe is graphene. This is a carbon plate, which is only one atom thick, but it is stronger than diamond, and the electrical conductivity is a hundred times higher than the silicon of computer chips.

Soon graphene will leave scientific laboratories. All the scientists of the world talk today about its unique properties. So, a few grams of material will be enough to cover an entire football field. Graphene is very flexible, it can be folded, bent, rolled up.

Possible areas of its use - solar panels, Cell Phones, touch screens, super-fast computer chips.
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Strength is defined as the ability of a material to resist degradation under impact. external forces and factors leading to internal tension. Materials with high strength have a wide range of applications. In nature, I exist not only hard metals and durable wood species, but also artificially created high-strength materials. Many people believe that the hardest material in the world is diamond, but is it really true?

General information:

Opening date - early 60s;

Pioneers - Sladkov, Kudryavtsev, Korshak, Kasatkin;

Density - 1.9-2 g / cm3.

Recently, scientists from Austria have completed work on establishing a sustainable production of carbine, which is an allotropic form of carbon based on the sp hybridization of carbon atoms. Its strength indicators are 40 times higher than those of diamond. Information about this was placed in one of the issues of the scientific printed periodical "Nature Materials".

After a thorough study of its properties, the scientists explained that in terms of strength it cannot be compared with any previously discovered and studied material. However, significant difficulties arose during the production process: the structure of carbine is formed from carbon atoms assembled in long chains, as a result of which it begins to break down during the production process.

To eliminate the identified snag, physicists from the public university in Vienna created a special protective coating in which carbine was synthesized. As protective coating layers of graphene were used, put friend on a friend and rolled up in a thermos. While physicists have been working hard to achieve stable shapes, they have figured out electrical properties material is affected by the length of the atomic chain.

Researchers have not learned how to extract carbine from a protective coating without damage, so the study of a new material continues, scientists are guided only by the relative stability of atomic chains.

Carbin is a little-studied allotropic modification of carbon, the discoverers of which were Soviet chemists: A.M. Sladkov, Yu.P. Kudryavtsev, V.V. Korshak and V.I. Kasatochkin. Information about the result of the experiment with detailed description discovery of the material in 1967 appeared on the pages of one of the largest scientific journals - "Reports of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR". 15 years later in the American scientific journal Science published an article questioning the results obtained by Soviet chemists. It turned out that the signals assigned to the little-studied allotropic modification of carbon could be associated with the presence of silicate impurities. Over the years, similar signals have been found in interstellar space.

General information:

Pioneers - Geim, Novoselov;

Thermal conductivity - 1 TPa.

Graphene is a two-dimensional allotropic modification of carbon, in which atoms are combined into a hexagonal lattice. Despite the high strength of graphene, the thickness of its layer is 1 atom.

The pioneers of the material were Russian physicists, Andrey Geim and Konstantin Novoselov. In their own country, the scientists did not secure financial support and decided to move to the Netherlands and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In 2010, scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize.

On a sheet of graphene, the area of ​​which is equal to one square meter, and the thickness is one atom, objects weighing up to four kilograms are freely held. In addition to being a highly durable material, graphene is also very flexible. From a material with such characteristics, in the future it will be possible to weave threads and other rope structures that are not inferior in strength to a thick steel rope. At certain conditions the material discovered by Russian physicists can cope with damage in the crystal structure.

General information:

Year of opening - 1967;

Color - brown-yellow;

Measured density - 3.2 g/cm3;

Hardness - 7-8 units on the Mohs scale.

The structure of lonsdaleite, found in a meteorite funnel, is similar to diamond, both materials are allotropic modifications of carbon. Most likely, as a result of the explosion, graphite, which is one of the components of the meteorite, turned into lonsdaleite. At the time of discovery of the material, scientists did not note high hardness indicators, however, it was proved that if there are no impurities in it, then it will in no way be inferior to the high hardness of diamond.

General information about boron nitride:

Density - 2.18 g / cm3;

Melting point - 2973 degrees Celsius;

Crystal structure - hexagonal lattice;

Thermal conductivity - 400 W / (m × K);

Hardness - less than 10 units on the Mohs scale.

The main differences of wurtzite boron nitride, which is a compound of boron with nitrogen, are thermal and chemical resistance and fire resistance. The material can be of different crystalline form. For example, graphite is the softest, but stable, it is used in cosmetology. sphalerite structure in crystal lattice similar to diamonds, but inferior in terms of softness, while having better chemical and thermal resistance. Such properties of wurtzite boron nitride make it possible to use it in equipment for high-temperature processes.

General information:

Hardness - 1000 Gn / m2;

Strength - 4 Gn / m2;

The year of discovery of metallic glass is 1960.

Metallic glass is a material with a high hardness index, a disordered structure at the atomic level. The main difference between the structure of metallic glass and ordinary glass is its high electrical conductivity. Such materials are obtained as a result of a solid-state reaction, rapid cooling or ion irradiation. Scientists have learned to invent amorphous metals, the strength of which is 3 times greater than that of steel alloys.

General information:

Elastic limit - 1500 MPa;

KCU - 0.4-0.6 MJ / m2.

General information:

Impact strength KST - 0.25-0.3 MJ / m2;

Elastic limit - 1500 MPa;

KCU - 0.4-0.6 MJ / m2.

Maraging steels are iron alloys with high impact strength without losing ductility. Despite these characteristics, the material does not hold cutting edge. The alloys obtained by heat treatment are low-carbon substances that take strength from intermetallic compounds. The composition of the alloy includes nickel, cobalt and other carbide-forming elements. This type of high-strength, high-alloy steel is easy to process, this is due to the low content of carbon in its composition. A material with such characteristics has found application in the aerospace field, it is used as a coating for rocket bodies.

Osmium

General information:

Opening year - 1803;

The lattice structure is hexagonal;

Thermal conductivity - (300 K) (87.6) W / (m × K);

Melting point - 3306 K.

A shiny bluish-white metal with high strength belongs to the platinoids. Osmium, having a high atomic density, exceptional refractoriness, brittleness, high strength, hardness and resistance to mechanical influences and aggressive influence environment, is widely used in surgery, measuring technology, chemical industry, electron microscopy, rocket technology and electronic equipment.

General information:

Density - 1.3-2.1 t / m3;

The strength of carbon fiber is 0.5-1 GPa;

The modulus of elasticity of high-strength carbon fiber is 215 GPa.

Carbon-carbon composites are materials that consist of a carbon matrix, which in turn is reinforced with carbon fibers. The main characteristics of composites - high strength, flexibility and toughness. Structure composite materials can be either unidirectional or three-dimensional. Due to these qualities, composites are widely used in various fields, including the aerospace industry.

General information:

The official year of discovery of the spider is 2010;

>The impact strength of the web is 350 MJ/m3.

For the first time, a spider weaving huge webs was discovered near Africa, on island nation Madagascar. Officially, this type of spider was discovered in 2010. Scientists, first of all, were interested in the webs woven by arthropods. The diameter of the circles on the carrier thread can reach up to two meters. Darwin's web is more durable than synthetic Kevlar used in the aviation and automotive industries.

General information:

Thermal conductivity - 900-2300 W / (m × K);

Melting temperature at a pressure of 11 GPa - 3700-4000 degrees Celsius;

Density - 3.47-3.55 g / cm3;

The refractive index is 2.417-2.419.

Diamond in ancient Greek means "indestructible", but scientists have discovered 9 more elements that surpass it in terms of strength. Despite the endless existence of a diamond in an ordinary environment, when high temperature and in an inert gas, it can turn into graphite. Diamond is a reference element (on the Mohs scale), which has one of the highest hardness values. For him, as for many precious stones, characterized by luminescence, which allows it to shine when exposed to sunlight.