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Graphene Aerogel Takes World's Lightest Material Crown
cylonlover writes "Not even a year after it claimed the title of the world's lightest material, aerographite has been knocked off its crown by a new aerogel made from graphene. Created by a research team from China's Zhejiang University in the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering lab headed by Professor Gao Chao, the ultra-light aerogel has a density of just 0.16 mg/cm3, which is lower than that of helium and just twice that of hydrogen."
Obviously not 'lightest', but 'least dense'. Sheesh, editors - do your JOB! The /. title should be "Silly folk at Gizmag confuse mass with density when describing world's least dense solid.'
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
The insulative properties are also pretty dramatic. There is another picture floating around with some crayons in place of the flower. That little stunt might not work as well with carbon aerogels as it does with silica ones, though...
The density is measured including its interior space. In reality the interior space is filled with air and its realtive weight is the carbon structure alone.
To make it float you would have to find a way to seal off the interior structure and remove the air from that.
OTOH, how strong is it? Graphene is supposed to be tough stuff.
I have no idea how strong graphene areogel is, but I have handled silica aerogel and it is extremely fragile. It it difficult to handle it without accidentally fracturing it. My daughter used a disk of aerogel as in insulator in her school science project last year, and we had to buy three disks ($30 each) because they kept breaking. I hope graphene aerogel is stonger.