Friday, March 29, 2013

Graphene aerogel is the new world's lightest substance

Crave reports Graphene aerogel is the new world's lightest substance

"Now, a new graphene aerogel created by scientists led by professor Gao Chao at the Zhejiang University has swept past, weighing in at just 0.16 milligrams per cubic centimetre. For reference, the density of air is 1.2 milligrams per cubic centimetre — so the new material is 7.5 times lighter than air. It's twice as heavy as hydrogen — the lightest element there is — but beats out helium, which has a density of 0.1786 milligrams per cubic centimetre."

"The new material is amazingly absorptive, able to suck in up to 900 times its own weight in oil at a rate of 68.8 grams per second — only oil, not water, which means it has massive potential as a cleaning material when it comes to events such as oil spills. Then, both the graphene aerogel and the oil could be recycled."

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