Wonder substance is 10 times strength of steel

A NEW substance using the wonder material graphene has been developed which is 10 times stronger than steel but has just five per cent of its density.

Graphene discovered by Nobel prize winning scientists at the University of Manchester is just an atom thick and is a two-dimensional form of carbon.

In its two-dimensional form it is thought to be the strongest of all known materials – about 200 times stronger than the strongest steel.

It also conducts heat and electricity very efficiently and is nearly transparent and was hailed as a wonder material promising to transform every object. But until now scientists have not succeeded in translating that two-dimensional strength into useful three-dimensional materials.

Now a team of researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology has designed one of the strongest lightweight materials known by compressing and fusing flakes of graphene.

The new material has a sponge-like configuration that resembles that of some corals and microscopic creatures called diatoms. These shapes, which have an enormous surface area in proportion to their volume, proved to be remarkably strong.

Yet the crucial aspect of the new 3D forms has more to do with their unusual geometrical configuration than with the material itself. This suggested that similar strong, lightweight materials could be made from a variety of materials by creating similar geometric features.

Research scientist Zhao Qin said: “Once we created these 3D structures, we wanted to see what’s the limit – what’s the strongest possible material we can produce.”