New Lightweight Material Stronger Than Steel

[JMCx4]

From: MIT News

New lightweight material is stronger than steel

The new substance is the result of a feat thought to be impossible: polymerizing a material in two dimensions.

Anne Trafton | MIT News Office
Publication Date: February 2, 2022


Using a novel polymerization process, MIT chemical engineers have created a new material that is stronger than steel and as light as plastic, and can be easily manufactured in large quantities.

The new material is a two-dimensional polymer that self-assembles into sheets, unlike all other polymers, which form one-dimensional, spaghetti-like chains. Until now, scientists had believed it was impossible to induce polymers to form 2D sheets.

Such a material could be used as a lightweight, durable coating for car parts or cell phones, or as a building material for bridges or other structures ... .

The researchers have filed for two patents on the process they used to generate the material, which they describe in a paper appearing today in Nature. MIT postdoc Yuwen Zeng is the lead author of the study.
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[tarheelhockey]

Sounds like that could be really huge. If it's capable of bearing weight (which one would assume by "stronger than steel") that could greatly reduce the load bearing on anything made from it. For example, it could make airplanes both safer and cheaper to fly. It would presumably make car crashes less deadly. Buildings would be less likely to topple. Etc etc etc.

Edit: Now I'm questioning my assumption about the car collisions. Seems like there may be an offset between safety gains (protection by a stronger material) and safety losses (cars exerting more force on each other in the collision).

 

[JMCx4]

... Edit: Now I'm questioning my assumption about the car collisions. Seems like there may be an offset between safety gains (protection by a stronger material) and safety losses (cars exerting more force on each other in the collision).

The car safety cage could be made of the material to reduce overall vehicle weight, while utilizing complementary crumple zone materials for impact energy mitigation.