It expect like a wisp of smoke or even the oeuvre of a very confused spider , but this is in reality a close up of the lightest fabric that has ever been created .
Previous platter holders includeaerogel , which was used by NASA to amass rubble from a comet and is 99.9 per centime air with a density of just 1 milligram per centimetre cubed . That was recently beaten by themetallic microlattice , which up the stakes to 0.9 milligram / cm³.
Now there isaerographite , which easily blast the previous record . With a concentration of less than 0.2 atomic number 12 / cm³ , it is scarcely there at all . investigator at the Hamburg University of Technology and the University of Kiel , both in Germany , made it from a mesh of empty C vacuum tube grown at nano and micro ordered series . As the electron microscope characterization above shows , it is mostly empty space , though if you nurse a clump in your paw , it would look like a ignominious sponge .
Its sparse nature means aerographite can be compact by a factor of a thousand , only to ricochet back to its original size . The material can also support 35 times more weight than the same mass of aerogel . Aerographite ’s ability to conduct electrical energy means it might also find out a economic consumption as part of an ultra - lightweight assault and battery .
Image by Tuhh , Karl Schulte / DPA / Press Association Images
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