Concrete may have found it's killer app in graphene, a material that exhibits record breaking strength, yet is much, much lighter than any known substance. The material is the strongest and lightest, pound-for-pound, material ever measured.
Its inventors say the material is not only ideal for car manufacturers, but for the military, aerospace, and the electronics industries.
Converting military vehicles like tanks and jeeps to more efficient and environmentally friendlier materials is expensive. This has long-term costs for the militaries of the world.
Researchers at the University of Exeter and Texas A&M University have developed a material that holds out the promise to make future vehicles lighter while achieving lower fuel consumption.
Car designers have long sought a single material that would achieve the high strength to weight ratio of steel and the capacity to absorb impact energy of polymers, without the need to compromise on any of the physical properties, says Nick Colaneri of The University of Exeter.
Graphene has the highest-known stiffness-to-weight ratio, but until now, production has not been possible for mass production.
Graphene, a one-atom-thick planar sheet of carbon, is the strongest material ever measured, and is also extremely light in weight.
Aerospace scientists at Lockheed Martin recently announced the invention of a revolutionary polymer composite material. Carbon nanorings—small circles made of carbon atoms—filled with high-strength carbon fibers have a density as low as 2.24 pounds per cubic inch. The material also boasts the lightest known polymer composite at 6.7 pounds per cubic inch.
N. K. Colaneri from the University of Exeter and Markus Dubay from Texas A&M University said, "It's the first time we've been able to combine these two properties into a single composite."
Dubay said, "While this material was invented with aerospace applications in mind, it has far reaching implications in other areas, especially the automotive industry."
The new material could play a big role in future military vehicles, and also in future consumer vehicles.
In the last 50 years, the average weight of a car has increased almost 100 pounds, and the average weight of a soldier has gone up more than 100 pounds.
It will help to save the armies and militaries of the world the expense of having to develop new materials, and give them more time to focus on the threats from conventional weapons, Dubay said.
Aerospace engineers at Lockheed Martin's cutting-edge research facility in Orlando, Fla., invented the super-light material that when combined with other carbon-based materials can take you from 0 to 60 miles per hour in just five seconds.
A recent study conducted by a team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences showed that graphene may be the next great supermaterial, following only carbon nanotubes.
Carbon nanotubes are similar to graphene in that they are one-atom-thick sheets of carbon atoms.
Carbon nanotubes have been touted for decades as a superior material and have proved it is so in many applications. They have been used in armor and body armor, and can be used in the aviation industry.
Carbon nanotubes are already making their way into the automotive industry as nano-reinforcements for body panels and interior materials.
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently conducted a study that revealed graphene's amazing tensile strength. They created a nano-architecture of graphene and found that the sheer number of available pores of graphene causes it to stretch at a stress greater than 20,000 psi. That is 20,000 pounds per square inch.
They also found that just one graphene layer is able to transfer nearly 2.2 percent of the surface area's stress. In addition to being strong, it is also highly elastic and as flexible as rubber.
Nanoscientists have been trying to develop a material that is as strong as steel and as elastic as rubber since the '80s, Dubay said. This material can carry a significant load for a long time, he said.
The latest research, conducted by Dubay, professor Zhigang Suo and Zhiwei Jiang from Stanford University, showed that graphene can be used in the automotive industry.
Graphene and graphene derivatives can be used in armor, which is still mostly steel and iron based. The strong and elastic graphene structure can withstand shockwaves, which is equivalent to a bomb blast.
The new material might also have a role to play in the manufacture of cell phones. When the phone is folded, graphene will maintain its shape and allow the phone to operate normally.
There are many applications for graphene, and the future looks very promising.
The research paper "Carbon Nanorings in Graphene-Carbon Nanotube Composites" is published in the latest issue of Carbon. The paper is available at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/nl103396v.
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