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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."
A Series of Tubes, eh?
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.
Some Aerogels can already float in air, but most of those are incredibly fragile.
on Cnet it specifically states that the .9mg/cm^3 is without air.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57327382-264/breakthrough-material-is-barely-more-than-air/?part=rss&subj=crave&tag=title
I normally don't link videos, but in this case it makes sense.
I think this is what he is talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoCAxS4vqwQ
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We've already found the densest thing in the universe. A slashdot thread argument between unity100 and roman_mir about the role of government in the market.
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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The problem with aerogels is that they can be very finicky during production, and unless you make them hydrophobic (or is it hydrophillic?) they can start to dissolve from as little as a single drop of sweat.
Some friends and I got some lab equipment during a "Lost Our Grant" sale, which included a high-pressure autoclave. We thought making aerogel would be a hoot, but damn is that stuff difficult to produce. It is relatively cheap, but during the supercritical drying phase, you'd best not bump the autoclave, and you better have mixed everything right. That stuff is like the comedy souffle of the future.
Anyway, the novelty wears off after you've played with the stuff for 20 minutes. The novelty of watching the cat bat it around takes about an hour.
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.
Well, no: the material itself if still made of metal, and the metal has a density greater than atmosphere, and the atmosphere pervades through it (it's an open cell lattice). In order for it to float in air, you would need to enclose it (i.e., put a skin around it) and remove the air from the interior volume. The material needs to displace the air. The same could be said for boats: they float on water only when the hull has the water removed. Once the water gets inside the hull, you face the fact that the boat is made of metal and will sink. The buoyancy in air or water is based on displacing the fluid by something of lesser density. For a floating boat, replacing water with air. For a chunk of this foam, replacing air with helium, vacuum, etc.