Ever since its discovery ten years ago , scientists and engineers have expressed not bad expectation for the “ wonder material ” graphene . Just a single atom thickset , these C sheets are not only the Earth ’s thinnest material , but they are also thestrongest . It therefore may not come as a complete surprise that scientist are now considering its use in body armour . After conducting miniature ballistic tests , graphene was found to performtwice as wellas the material traditionally used in bulletproof vests , raising the possible action that it could be used as protection for police officer or extremity of the armed forces .
Graphene consists of a tabloid of individual C atoms arranged in ahoneycomb structure . Alongside being incredibly unassailable , graphene alsoconducts passion and electricityremarkably well , resist rust and has excellent optical and mechanical properties . Graphene also achieves this impressive range of characteristics while beingincredibly lightweight , which is why scientists began to wonder whether it would make a honest addition to physical structure armour .
Unfortunately , testing it out is not as elementary as fire heater through it and seeing what happens , because atom - thick stuff would be obliterated by such an impingement . see its energy therefore required a dissimilar tactic , so scientist from the University of Massachusetts - Amherst created a miniaturized ballistics test .
As described in the journalScience , the researchers used optical maser tosuperheat Au filaments , which behaved like gunpowder and fired tiny silica spheres , or “ microbullets , ” at sheets of graphene range from 10 to 100 nanometers in thickness .
Bycomparing the kinetic energyof the spheres before and after they infiltrate the sheets , they found that graphene dissipates this energy by warp into a cone shape at the site of impact , and then cracking outwards . While these cracks interpret a helplessness , the material still performed twice as well asKevlar , the lightweight character used in consistency armour . what is more , it plunge between 8 and 10 times the impacts that steel is able to withstand .
In the time to come , scientist might be able-bodied to overcome the crack problem by combining it with other materials to get a composite , the researcherssaid .
Interestingly , another report arrive out this week inNaturewhich revealed a previously unknown prop of graphene : it is permeable to proton . This raises the opening that it could be used to improve fuel - cell technology , or even to reap hydrogen from the atmospheric state .
H fuel cubicle create electrical energy through a chemical reaction betweenhydrogen and oxygen . They rely onsemi - permeable membranesthat allow the passage of proton but block other particles . survive materials , however , let some hydrogen fuel leak through , which reduces efficiency of the system . But graphene seems to be impermeable to everything but proton , suggesting it could be an ideal solvent to the trouble .
moreover , this newly identified place could mean that one day , graphene could be used as a sieve to extract H from air , meaning we could pump fuel from the atmosphere and generate electricity from it . While that prospect is exciting , it is purelyspeculationat this stage .
[ ViaScience , New Scientist , BBC News , Science Alert , E&T , NatureandNature ]
