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Engineers Create World's Lightest Material
ackthpt writes "A team of engineers claims to have created the world's lightest material. Made from a lattice of hollow metallic tubes, the material is less dense than aerogels and metallic foams, yet retains strength due to the small size of the lattice structure (abstract). The material's density is 0.9 milligrams per cubic centimeter. Among other things, it's potentially useful for insulation, battery electrodes, and sound dampening."
You're obviously going to have tared the measuring against air. Making it .9mg above the weight of the air. But, if there is no air, it would weight .9.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
The lightest Aerogel when evacuated has a density of ~1mg/cm^3
It is porous, and when air is allowed into its structure to goes up to 1.9mg/cm^3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel
It doesn't have the strength to resist 1 atmosphere of pressure when sealed. But helium can be used to equalize the pressure and the material will float in air.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoCAxS4vqwQ
Due to its expense I can't see this being used as a drywall replacement. Drywall is used to due to how cheap it is, not because it is the best at its job.
If it was used in the same fashion as drywall then the actual lattice would be covered by a paper layer and then acoustic mud, just like drywall.
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All of which would be interesting. Some of us like science and engineering.
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What?! Your comment does not compute. Thats like saying NASA just built this new rocket, I bet it would work great to heat my house with it!
Drywall's sole purpose is to be a flat surface (ie: a wall) for painting and as a fire resistant to give occupants of buildings slightly more time to get out. Hence the reason they often use double or triple layers of drywall between shared walls. It offers virtually no insulation value whatsoever, which is why its paired with actual insulation on exterior walls.
This material doesn't share [b]any[/b] of those properties in a practical sense. Its obviously porous and would be impractical to paint, not to mention it would probably cost thousands of times more than drywall and be much more difficult to work with.