Using an unconventional combination of DNA and glass, the researchers have created an impressive material that they say is both stronger and lighter than steel, although it is currently impractical.
“Our material is the strongest known for this density,” said Seok-Woo Lee, a materials scientist at the University of Connecticut and co-author of the study published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science. This extremely strong material is known as the glass nanolattice structure, and Lee believes the findings will pave the way for stronger materials using a similar architecture in the future.
Scientists need to think outside the box to develop a strong and lightweight material. Common materials such as iron, which can withstand seven tons of pressure per square centimeter, are also not preferred because they are too heavy. Steel, which can easily be said to be better than iron, is an important development that combines iron with carbon to create an even stronger metal at approximately the same weight. But the situation changes if you want something much lighter, like Kevlar, which is five times stronger than steel and forms the basis of body armor.
The researchers used a state-of-the-art technique that uses self-assembled DNA that combines to form a chemical skeleton in this material. They then covered this DNA architecture with a layer of glass-like material only hundreds of atoms thick—in other words, too thin to be detected.
It may seem counterintuitive to use a brittle material like glass for this purpose, but researchers say the main reason glass breaks easily is due to defects in its structure, such as cracks. However, by using the DNA skeleton on a small scale, researchers can effectively eliminate these defects, resulting in a glass nanolattice structure that is not only remarkably strong, but also robust. They say their new material is four times stronger than steel and five times lower in density, and they report nothing to compete with these numbers before.
Still, these techniques will need to be expanded from measurement in atoms to applications on a large scale before these findings can be seen as heralding a new era of supermaterials.
“The ability to create and mineralize engineered 3D framework nanomaterials using DNA opens up enormous opportunities for engineering mechanical properties,” said Oleg Gang, a nanomaterials scientist at Columbia University who worked on the research, in a statement. A lot of research work is needed.”
The team’s next goal is to replicate the same feat with a method based on their newly developed DNA architecture, but using stronger ceramics instead of glass.
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