The lightest material in the world, lighter than air, can now be 3D printed

The successful 3D printing uses the world's lightest material - graphene aerogel promises to open a new chapter for the material industry.

Graphene aerogel is the world's lightest material with a weight 7.5 times lighter than air, 1 cubic meter of graphene aerogel weighs less than 160 grams. Even graphene aerogel lighter than the world's second lightest material, aerographite up to 12%.

There is a very good question that if it is lighter than air, why can't this material fly? This is because there is a lot of space between the molecules of this material that makes the air creep in, making it not fly.

Graphene aerogel is the lightest material in the world.

A rather humorous nickname is "freezing smoke", an airgel is a form of solid that can bend, conduct electricity, withstand compressive forces and good absorbency.

Because of the strange properties of this material, scientists have discovered many potential applications from invisibility cloaks to environmental cleanup. Only 1 gram of airgel absorbs some types of materials weighing up to 900 times their weight as oil. A completely cheaper method than the market.

Currently in many studies and experiments, silica aerogel is the most common form of geometry used for airgel research. The difficulty of this material is that it is not easy to produce. However, scientists have diligently researched and found successful ways to print 3D the lightest material in the world.

Recently, scientists come from University. New York state and University. Kansas state, USA said it was possible to 3D print airgel material for the first time. The whole process is controlled automatically and evenly on all layers of materials.

A block of graphene aerogel can float on the grass or even on the heads of flowers.

The airgel itself is a layer of pure, thick and two-dimensional carbon atoms. They put together into a hexagonal honeycomb network. To produce graphene aerogels, researchers will have to freeze the graphene layer and arrange them into a three-dimensional structure.

According to ScienceAlert, using 3D printing technology to successfully build graphene aerogel for the first time showed the researchers' remarkable efforts. Because the molecular structure of graphene aerogel has been identified as difficult to print 3D.

Researcher Akshat Rathi in the group of successful 3D printing graphene aerogel said:

"Normally to print 3D graphene aerogels, the main material will be mixed with other components, such as polymer for inkjet printing on the printer. When the structure has been shaped, the polymer will be separated from the object. The main material after another chemical process, however, in the case of an airgel, this method can destroy the crystal structure of the airgel. "

The solution proposed by the team is graphene oxide - a form of graphene that combines with oxygen molecules . The team mixed the compound with water and placed it on a cooled surface to -25 degrees Celsius. At this temperature, researchers were able to immediately freeze individual graphene layers and create so the three-dimensional graphene structure.

Graphene aerogel - 3D printing process for the lightest material in the world.

Rathi also added that after the 3D structure creation process is complete, they will proceed to remove the surrounding ice blocks by using liquid nitrogen to freeze the water and detach from the object surface without affect structure.

The 3D structural aerogel material will continue to work with heat to separate oxygen atoms. The results will be graphene aerogel only. According to Rathi, "the solids obtained will vary in density from 0.5kg / m ³ to 10kg / m ^{3. The} lightest Graphene aerogel ever produced has a weight of about 0.16kg / m ³ ".

Currently the team is planning to find out how to produce other types of airgel such as silica aerogels used on the same printer. It is known that the study was published in Small magazine recently.

So with the latest advancement in this material production technique, we will soon see the appearance of these ultra-light but powerful products in all aspects of life.