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Synthetic Materials Set New World Record For Greatest Amount of Surface Area

Posted by Soulskill on from the narrowly-beating-out-your-mamma dept.

Zothecula writes "Researchers at Northwestern University, Illinois, have broken a world record in the creation of two synthetic materials, named NU-109 and NU-110, which have the greatest amount of surface areas of any material to date (abstract). To put this into perspective: if one were able to take a crystal of NU-110 the size of a grain of salt, and somehow unfold it, the surface area would cover a desktop. Additionally, the internal surface area of just one gram of the new material would cover one-and-a-half football fields."

2 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. What are the implications? by joelwhitehouse · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The article says the synthetic material is porous. Can this material be used as a water filter? If the material forms a cage like structure, can it be used in medicine to trap a virus or bacterium before infection occurs? What can you do with such a material?

  2. Capacitor by pcjunky · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder how large a capacitor density could e made with this stuff?