The new material could unleash revolutionary potential for automakers and even create the next generation of body armor. New report Show. The material is said to be four times stronger than steel and up to five times lighter. This is a very bold claim that is sure to attract a lot of attention in the future.
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The new material was created by researchers and materials scientists working at UConn, Columbia University and Brookhaven National Laboratory. The substance is detailed in research published in the journal Physical Sciences Cell Report In July this year.
Researchers say the new material is four times stronger than steel, making it sturdier than one of the materials most commonly used in the construction of vehicles, buildings and more. They created the material using a DNA scaffold, enabling the formation of complex nanostructured silica – a material similar to glass.
Glass that is free of blemishes will be very strong. Image source: Quanbinz/Adobe
It seems impossible that glass is stronger than steel, but glass is usually very brittle due to imperfections in its structure. This new DNA scaffold eliminates many of those drawbacks, allowing a stronger material that, while similar to glass, remains on par with steel in terms of overall durability.
Of course, creating a large piece of glass that is completely flawless is a huge undertaking. That’s why the researchers relied on their ingenuity to make this happen and used nano-sized pieces of glass to make the material, so that it can be made from several pieces of glass without any defects in the frame-like design. Think of it as the skeleton of a building but on a much smaller scale.
From here, the researchers covered each section with a layer of glass only a few hundred atoms thick. Because there is a lot of empty space between each piece, this allows the material to be stronger than steel and also lighter.
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2023-10-06 04:48:45
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