Scientists Astonished by Strange Material that Can be Made Like Plastic But Conducts Like Metal
An Anonymous Coward writes:
A group of scientists at the University of Chicago has discovered a way to create a material in which the molecular fragments are jumbled and disordered, but can still conduct electricity extremely well. [...]
This goes against all of the rules we know about conductivity-to a scientist, it's kind of like seeing a car driving on water and still going 70 mph. But the finding could also prove to be extraordinarily useful. Often, on the way to inventing something revolutionary, the process first starts with discovering a completely new material.
In principle, this opens up the design of a whole new class of materials that conduct electricity, are easy to shape, and are very robust in everyday conditions," said John Anderson, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago and the senior author on the study. Essentially, it suggests new possibilities for an extremely important technological group of materials," said Jiaze Xie (PhD'22, now at Princeton), the first author on the paper.
[...] To the scientists' astonishment, the material easily and strongly conducted electricity. What's more, it was very stable. We heated it, chilled it, exposed it to air and humidity, and even dripped acid and base on it, and nothing happened," said Xie. That is enormously helpful for a device that has to function in the real world.
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