homehome Home chatchat Notifications


Scientists in Sweden have created an 'impossible' material called Upsalite

It may not look like much, but this material has wonderous properties, according to Swedish researchers.  The magnesium carbonate is extremely porous, setting new records in terms of surface area and water absorbtion, potentially having all sorts of applications, from controlling moisture in electronic and medical procedures to gathering up pollutants from oil spills. Still, the practical, […]

Mihai Andrei
August 7, 2013 @ 5:39 am

share Share

It may not look like much, but this material has wonderous properties, according to Swedish researchers.  The magnesium carbonate is extremely porous, setting new records in terms of surface area and water absorbtion, potentially having all sorts of applications, from controlling moisture in electronic and medical procedures to gathering up pollutants from oil spills.

uppsalite

Still, the practical, economic potential for uppsalite has limited prospects at the moment – its discovery is significant rather because it was thought as impossible to develop. But with a surface area of 800 square meters per gram, Upsalite is reported to have the highest surface area measured for an alkali earth metal carbonate ever created. It also much better at low relative pressure uptake for water than currently used materials (such as the naturally occuring, relatively abundant zeolites), but it’s not yet clear if it has the potential to be financially viable.

Named this way after the Uppsala University in Sweden, the wonder material can retain more than 75% of the adsorbed water when the humidity is decreased from 95% to 5% at room temperature, which also means it can be used in drug delivery and catalysis.

“This, together with other unique properties of the discovered impossible material is expected to pave the way for new sustainable products in a number of industrial applications”, study co-author Maria Strømme, a professor of nanotechnology at the university, said in the statement.

Scientific reference.

share Share

Swarms of tiny robots could go up your nose, melt the mucus and clean your sinuses

The "search-and-destroy” microrobot system can chemically shred the resident bacterial biofilm.

Researchers just got a group of bacteria to produce Paracetamol from plastic

What if the empty water bottle in your recycling bin could one day relieve your headache?

Korean researchers used carbon nanotubes to build a motor that's five times lighter

Scientists just gave the electric motor a sci-fi upgrade.

China's New Mosquito Drone Could Probably Slip Through Windows and Spy Undetected

If the military is happy to show this, what other things are they covertly working on?

Scientists Discover a Way to Store Data in Ice Using Only Air Bubbles

Scientists see the potential in using ice for long term data storage.

Scientists Detect Light Traversing the Entire Human Head—Opening a Window to the Brain’s Deepest Regions

Researchers are challenging the limits of optical brain imaging.

Stanford's New Rice-Sized Device Destroys Clots Where Other Treatments Fail

Forget brute force—Stanford engineers are using finesse to tackle deadly clots.

The World’s Largest Sand Battery Just Went Online in Finland. It could change renewable energy

This sand battery system can store 1,000 megawatt-hours of heat for weeks at a time.

This new blood test could find cancerous tumors three years before any symptoms

Imagine catching cancer before symptoms even appear. New research shows we’re closer than ever.

DARPA Just Beamed Power Over 5 Miles Using Lasers and Used It To Make Popcorn

A record-breaking laser beam could redefine how we send power to the world's hardest places.