Imagine a balloon that could float without using any lighter-than-air gas. Instead, it could simply have all of its air sucked out while maintaining its filled shape.
Such a vacuum balloon, which could help ease the world’s current shortage of helium, can only be made if a new material existed that was strong enough to sustain the pressure generated by forcing out all that air while still being lightweight and flexible.
Caltech materials scientist Julia Greer and her colleagues are on the path to developing such a material and many others that possess unheard-of combinations of properties. For example, they might create a material that is thermally insulating but also extremely lightweight, or one that is simultaneously strong, lightweight, and nonbreakable—properties that are generally thought to be mutually exclusive.
Greer’s team has developed a method for constructing new structural materials by taking advantage of the unusual properties that solids can have at the nanometer scale, where features are measured in billionths of meters. In a paper published in the September 12 issue of the journal Science, the Caltech researchers explain how they used the method to produce a ceramic (e.g., a piece of chalk or a brick) that contains about 99.9 percent air yet is incredibly strong, and that can recover its original shape after being smashed by more than 50 percent.
“Ceramics have always been thought to be heavy and brittle,” says Greer, a professor of materials science and mechanics in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science at Caltech. “We’re showing that in fact, they don’t have to be either. This very clearly demonstrates that if you use the concept of the nanoscale to create structures and then use those nanostructures like LEGO to construct larger materials, you can obtain nearly any set of properties you want. You can create materials by design.”
The Latest on: Nanostructures
[google_news title=”” keyword=”Nanostructures” num_posts=”10″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]
via Google News
The Latest on: Nanostructures
- New Water Filter Upcycles Cellulose for Cleaner Wateron April 25, 2024 at 9:04 am
In a recent study published in the journal Small Science , researchers from TU Wien discovered a unique way to purify water from waste cellulose. Günther Rupprechter and Qaisar Maqbool with a ...
- Nanofibers Rid Water of Hazardous Dyeson April 24, 2024 at 5:00 pm
This nano-cellulose is "spun" together with the plastic polyacrylonitrile into nanostructures. However, this requires a lot of technical skill. The team from the TU Wien was successful with a ...
- Researchers create nanostructures for efficient and sustainable degradation of pollutantson April 24, 2024 at 9:01 am
The need for sustainable and environment-friendly solutions has accelerated the global demand for green and renewable technologies. In this regard, semiconductor photocatalysts have emerged as an ...
- Nanofibers rid water of hazardous dyes: Researchers develop efficient filters based on cellulose wasteon April 24, 2024 at 8:22 am
Using waste to purify water may sound counterintuitive. But at TU Wien, this is exactly what has now been achieved. Researchers have developed a special nanostructure to filter a widespread class of ...
- Novel Au-BiFeO3 nanostructures for efficient and sustainable degradation of pollutantson April 23, 2024 at 5:00 pm
(Nanowerk News) The need for sustainable and environment-friendly solutions has accelerated the global demand for green and renewable technologies. In this regard, semiconductor photocatalysts have ...
- CHEM.5660 Nanomaterials and Nanostructures (Formerly 84.566)on April 8, 2024 at 8:29 am
Research and technology development in nanoscience and nanotechnology aim at understanding the fundamental nanoscale phenomena, synthesizing, fabricating and imaging nanomaterials and nanostructures, ...
- U-M researchers uncover a new top-down approach to creating 3D helical nanostructureson April 2, 2024 at 4:59 pm
A team of researchers at the University of Michigan recently formulated a new method of leveraging the interactions between light, water and silver particles to create 3D helical nanostructures, ...
- Multiparticle nanostructures for building better quantum technologieson March 4, 2024 at 9:16 am
In Nature Physics, the LSU Quantum Photonics Group offers fresh insights into the fundamental traits of surface plasmons, challenging the existing understanding. Based on experimental and ...
- Phonons in Nanostructureson May 13, 2023 at 7:47 am
Kim, Sun K. and Daniel, Isaac M. 2003. SOLUTION TO INVERSE HEAT CONDUCTION PROBLEM IN NANOSCALE USING SEQUENTIAL METHOD. Numerical Heat Transfer, Part B: Fundamentals ...
- Organic–inorganic nanostructures articles from across Nature Portfolioon November 22, 2021 at 5:24 am
An organic-inorganic nanostructure is a nanoscale structure (that is, a structure with single units sized between 1 and 1000 nanometres) composed of an intimate combination of inorganic and ...
via Bing News