Scientists confirm discovery of Aluminium lighter than water!

Doesn’t aluminium already float on water? We can’t blame you if you thought it did because aluminium is indeed a light-weight metal. However, conventional aluminium's density is 2.7gm per cubic cm. In order for something to float on water, this number has to be lesser than 1 (gm per cubic cm).

Scientists have designed an ultra-light form of aluminium, paving the way for novel uses of the material in future spacecraft and automobiles. Researchers from Utah State University (USU) have restructured the common household metal at the molecular level to design a form lighter than water! Like most common metals, aluminium lacks natural buoyancy. However, with a little rearranging of the metal’s natural molecular structure, one can produce an ultra-light crystalline form of the metal that is actually less dense than water.

Schematic depiction of a supertetrahedral aluminium crystal structure.

The research team constituting USU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry professor Alexander Boldyrev and his colleagues Iliya Getmanskii, Vitaliy Koval, Rusian Minyaev, and Vladimir Minkin of Southern Federal University in Rostov-on Don, Russia was working in this significant discovery. Their calculations confirmed such a structure is a new, metastable, lightweight form of crystal aluminium. The material has a density of only 0.61gm per cubic cm. Such a property opens a new realm of applications for the non-magnetic, corrosive-resistant, inexpensive and easy to produce metal.

“Spaceflight, medicine, wiring and more lightweight, more fuel-efficient automotive parts are some applications that come to mind. Of course, it’s very early to speculate about how this material could be used. There are many unknowns. For one thing, we don’t know anything about its strength” says Boldyrev.

Though the discovery itself is important, Boldyrev says the way in which it was made is also of significance. “An amazing aspect of this research is the approach: using a known structure to design a new material. This paves the way for future discoveries.”

Source: Aluminium Insider

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