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New lightweight material is stronger than steel

news.mit.edu

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Re: New lightweight material is stronger than steel

#3

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

montjoy wrote: post #2

> and can be easily manufactured in large quantities That seems promising. I have a couple of concerns - Can it be recycled? - How are new materials like this tested for toxicity?

> a couple of concerns - Can it be recycled?

Right. We have enough issues with plastic waste, without it having extra-ordinary strength.

Re: New lightweight material is stronger than steel

#6

Post by Melatonic »

Too bad the article does not actually say what the material is made out of. Does this beat UHWMPE? Because UHMWPE is already damn strung stuff for its weight. But the big downside being that because it is so damn dense it cannot be thermoformed (the big plus being that it also has a huge range of temperature resistance)

edit:

Correction, it looks like they call it "polyaramide" which sounds like it is similar to Aramid like Kevlar. Interesting

Re: New lightweight material is stronger than steel

#7

Post by chainwax »

I recall hearing similar claims of graphene a while back. I realize that the lag time between academic proof-of-concept and commercial availability is large, but I still haven't heard of any products coming out that are made of graphene. Do these materials' use cases overlap?

Re: New lightweight material is stronger than steel

#9

Post by soperj »

chainwax wrote: post #7

I recall hearing similar claims of graphene a while back. I realize that the lag time between academic proof-of-concept and commercial availability is large, but I still haven't heard of any products coming out that are made of graphene. Do these materials' use cases overlap?

I don't think anyone has ever claimed that graphene is easy to manufacture.
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