World Record: Lightest Material in the World Produced? Really?

This is what the scientific journal Advanced Materials published on July 3rd. I've put a question-mark at the end of the title because seems like this paper contradict what was published last year about another "world record lightest material".
That was discussed here last year with Russo's thread: World's Lightest Material Is a Metal 100 Times Lighter Than Styrofoam.

A team of researchers from UC Irvine, HRL Laboratories and the California Institute of Technology have developed the world's lightest material -- with a density of 0.9 mg/cc -- about one hundred times lighter than Styrofoam™.

And an extract of Advanced Materials:

A network of porous carbon tubes that is three-dimensionally interwoven at nano and micro level -- this is the lightest material in the world. It weights only 0.2 milligrams per cubic centimetre, and is therefore 75 times lighter than Styrofoam, but it is very strong nevertheless. Scientists of Kiel University (KU) and Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) have named their joint creation "Aerographite."

So who is right? 0.2 mg/cc is lighter than 0.9 mg/cc, then it should be more than 75 times lighter than Styrofoam, if we based our calculations on what they said last year...

I'll let you do the maths...

reply to post by elevenaugust


Omg thats crazy? Plus why haven't anyone commented this seems like big stuff S@F.

Does this also mean its a very strong material?

THATS AWESOME. Let's combine this with that 19 year old girls propulsion system and blast off to new frontiers already!


This stuff and that like aerogel...product...(can't remember what it's called) seem as if they were reverse engineered from technology everyday people don't get to see. Not saying it is!


Humans are extraoridnary when they want to be! Great find.


When can I get some shoes made out of this? PF Flyers should make a comeback.

Meh!................sounds like they have finaly figured out how to manipulate the all in one suites that have been reported in many enetity encounters!
well thats atleast what my first thoughts are

Why does it have to be alien tech?

Humans are smart. We don't need to explain away every cool thing invented by saying it's alien tech.

I wonder just exactly how strong this material is? IT could be a game changer in several fields if it's strong enough and easy enough to produce.

reply to post by roguetechie


On wiki, this substance is said to have incredible tensile strength, and can be compressed down to .1mm and spring back to it's original shape. It's current application seems to be for Capacitors, and other electronic components.

I imagine, this is not as strong as graphene and would have similar limitations, due to production costs/difficulties.

This material is literally grown, not shaped from a block or chunk.

Originally posted by elevenaugust



So who is right? 0.2 mg/cc is lighter than 0.9 mg/cc, then it should be more than 75 times lighter than Styrofoam, if we based our calculations on what they said last year...

It is not meant to be exact only to give the reader a real world idea of it's relative lightness. I am not sure exactly for styrofoam but the stuff it is made from has a wide enough range of density that essentially both could be fairly accurate

Okay, so it's very light.
How about we make a material that is so light, it's lighter than air...and it floats.
That's the level we need to achieve (Perhaps, we already have and are suppressing the technology.)
Did someone really think that only aliens could achieve these things, in the year 2012?

Originally posted by GezinhoKiko
Meh!................sounds like they have finaly figured out how to manipulate the all in one suites that have been reported in many enetity encounters!
well thats atleast what my first thoughts are

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. I'm also thinking that materials and developments such as this are utilized for years by the military before ever being released for public use. My guess is there is some patent ready to expire. That is the point at which these things are released to the public.