A team of MIT scientists has developed a material with the highest strength-to-weight ratio ever achieved, featuring a density of only five percent and a mechanical resistance ten times higher than steel.
The results were published in Science Advances, revealing that the researchers were able to compress and fuse graphene powders (a two-dimensional crystalline form of carbon) to create a sponge-like material. The team states that this discovery demonstrates that lightweight and high-strength materials could be manufactured from various substances by engineering specific geometric structures.
A team of MIT engineers successfully designed a new 3D material with 5% of steel’s density and ten times its strength, making it one of the strongest lightweight materials known today.
Researchers suggest potential applications in filtration systems. Thanks to its porous structure with extremely fine pore sizes, this material could be particularly suitable for water treatment or chemical filtration processes.
You can either use real graphene, or apply the geometries we’ve discovered to other materials such as polymers or metals. You can replace the material itself, knowing that the resulting geometry is the dominant factor. This has the potential to replace many existing solutions, says Markus Buehler, Head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
This illustration shows the results of simulation tests on tensile and compressive strength of three-dimensional graphene — Photo credit: Zhao Qin
In June 2017, another MIT team also discovered that nanometer-sized blocks of silk could improve filtration membranes. Apparently, silk nanofibrils could lead to the development of new naturally sourced industrial filters, which would be less expensive, more efficient and more environmentally friendly than existing solutions.
This latest breakthrough could potentially lead to new production methods and supply chain cost savings for anyone using these new filtration membranes, including food manufacturers, water treatment facilities and life science organisations (pharma, biotech, etc.).
This post “MIT develops a new material 10 times stronger than steel!” originally appeared on the MIT website and was published on 02/03/2017.
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