Efficient Structures and Materials

Plants, especially on buildings, are ornamentation. It does little to tend to 70% urban global C)2 emissions.

"This high-strength, lightweight, nano-architected silica is now the strongest known material for its given density. It comes in at five times lighter and four times stronger than steel. .... The researchers, which include scientists from the University of Connecticut, Columbia University, and Brookhaven National Lab, say glass—when flawless, that is—actually provides an ideal avenue toward crafting a new type of material. ....

Glass’s reputation for shattering easily is actually a result of any flaws present in the material—flawlessness is what brings lightweight strength. And to create flawless glass, the team used a sample less than a micrometer thick. At that thickness, glass is almost always flawless, and is much less dense than other metals and ceramics. The team then built a DNA lattice and coated it with a glass-like material only a few hundred atoms thick. Coating the DNA strands left empty space in portions of the material volume. This DNA skeleton reinforced the thin, flawless coating of glass for strength, and the voids made it lighter."

"Researchers from Hokkaido University in Japan developed the fabric, called fibre-reinforced soft composite(or FRSC), by combining hydrogels containing high levels of water with glass fibre fabric. 'The material has multiple potential applications because of its reliability, durability and flexibility,' says one of the researchers, Jian Ping Gong.

Putting two natural materials together to combine their properties is a trick people have been pulling off for a very long time – straw and mud go together to make bricks, and paper and glue gives you papier-mâché. The idea is you end up with a new super-material that combines the best parts of both your source materials.

The scientists set out to create a substance that could bear heavy loads and was also very fracture-resistant, taking the best characteristics of hydrogels, but adding extra durability and toughness through the glass fibre fabric. The team says the incredible strength of the composite material comes from dynamic ionic bonds – atoms attracted to each other as electrons get swapped – acting between the fibre and the hydrogels, and within the hydrogels themselves. ....

The end result is a material that's 25 times tougher than glass fibre fabric; 100 times tougher than hydrogels; and five times as strong as carbon steel, in terms of the energy required to break them.

"Combining steel and cement recycling in a single process powered by renewable electricity, could secure the supply of the basic materials of construction to support the infrastructure of a zero emissions world and to enable economic development where it is most needed." - Professor Allwood, University of Cambridge

PONDERING CORNER:
"Concentrating solar power with storage" - Professor Marc Jacobson Stanford University

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