China create the world's lightest material

Professor Yu Jianyong Bin Ding Donghua University and led research team is eligible nanofibers new results on the ultra-light fiber materials research, the results of the paper to “Ultralight nanofiber-assembled cellular aerogels with superelasticity and multifunctionality” was published in “Nature Communications” magazine Donghua University is the only signature units.

They use ordinary fiber membrane materials developed an ultra-light, super-elastic fibers airgel by China Metrology Accreditation results show that the fibers of the solid material density airgel only 0.12 milligrams per cubic centimeter, a volume of 20 cm3 “fiber airgel” could easily “hit” on a few feather fluff.

Aerogels are ultra lightweight solid material, more than 98% of its internal air. In 1999, NASA developed a density of 3 milligrams per cubic centimeter of silica aerogels, became the world’s lightest solid material. In 2012, German scientists created a lighter “graphite airgel”, with a density of 0.18 milligrams per cubic centimeter. 2013, Zhejiang University, developed the “full carbon airgel” density of 0.16 milligrams per cubic centimeter, creating a new record. And the Donghua University developed 0.12 milligrams per cubic centimeter “airgel fiber” successfully broken the record, “the world’s lightest material” in.

“Airgel fiber” is not only ultra-light, it is also very good compression rebound performance, compared to conventional carbon aerogels, its compression resilient improved 110%. Its low thermal conductivity of 0.026W / m • k, almost close to the thermal conductivity of the air. A 5 mm “fiber airgel” can easily achieve efficient wideband sound absorbing within 100-6300Hz; in addition, airgel or a high-performance fiber adsorbent material, can be quickly adsorbed than 200 times its own weight of liquid contamination matter, is expected to provide new approaches for the recent frequent offshore oil pollution disasters. In addition to these applications, this ultra-light “airgel fiber” material can be applied to the field of tissue engineering, electronics and so on.