Guest_Jim_* Posted April 23, 2015 Posted April 23, 2015 Aerogels are a fun class of materials as they are unbelievably light and have some unique uses, such as collecting dust from a comet's tail. By making them out of different materials, one can get special properties, but some materials are harder to work with than others. Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have recently managed to create an aerogel out of graphene by 3D printing, which is something many have tried and failed to do before. Aerogels sometimes referred to as 'liquid smoke' and are made by replacing the liquid component of a gel with a gas. Attempts at making one from graphene have more or less failed because the pore structure has been so random, making it impossible to control its mass transport and mechanical properties. The LLNL researchers solved this problem though by turning to a kind of 3D printing called direct ink writing. The ink in this case was an aqueous solution of graphene oxide, mixed with silica, and it was extruded from a micronozzle to form the 3D structure. This allows for the necessary control over pore structure and physical properties. The resulting aerogel is electrically conductive, lightweight, has a high surface area, and demonstrates supercompressibility. The material could end up finding uses in energy storage, sensors, nanoelectronics, catalysis and separations, and more thanks to the ability to print almost any complex structure desired. Source: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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