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A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 6
6 OMG!
OUTRAGEOUSMATERIALSGOODNESS
PERIODIC TABLE GAINS
FOUR NEW ELEMENTS
On Dec. 30, 2015, The Internation-
al Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
(IUPAC) formally verified the addition
of four new chemical elements to the
periodic table. These are the first addi-
tions to the table since 2011, when ele-
ments 114 and 116 were included. “The
chemistry community is eager to see its
most cherished table finally being com-
pleted down to the seventh row,” says
Jan Reedijk, president of the Inorganic
Chemistry Division of IUPAC.
Japanese researchers at the Riken
Institute were awarded credit for dis-
covery of element 113 (temporary name
and symbol: ununtrium, Uut). A collab-
orative team from the Joint Institute for
Nuclear Research in Russia, Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL),
and Oak Ridge National Laboratory
has met the criteria for discovery of
elements 115 and 117 (ununpentium,
Uup; ununseptium, Uus), while the
Russian and LLNL researchers together
were granted discovery of element 118
(ununoctium, Uuo).
The teams have been invited to
provide permanent names and two-
letter symbols for the elements they dis-
covered. Elements can be named after
a mythological concept, mineral, place
or country, property, or scientist. Fol-
lowing initial acceptance by the IUPAC
Inorganic Chemistry Division and a five-
month public review, the organization’s
Are you working with or have you
discovered a material or its properties
that exhibit OMG - Outrageous
Materials Goodness?
Send your submissions to
Julie Lucko at
.
Japanese team leader Kosuke
Morita at the Riken Institute.
Protective vest made with Dyneema
Anti Stab Technology.
highest body—the Council—will make
a final decision on the new names and
symbols. .
ANTI-STAB MATERIAL GETS
LIGHTER AND THINNER
DSM Dyneema, the Netherlands,
recently announced Dyneema Anti
Stab Technology, a patented material
for soft armor applications. Compared
to traditional materials, the new tech-
nology enables designers to create pro-
tective vests that are up to 25% lighter
and thinner. “We developed the Anti
Stab Technology to deliver maximum
protection against knife stabs, meeting
the specific needs of law enforcement
officers in hostile confrontations, as
well as military personnel engaged in
urban warfare,” says Marcio Manique,
global business director of the compa-
ny’s life protection unit. The anti-stab
technology can be combined with
Dyneema soft ballistic materials to de-
velop multi-threat protective gear. DSM
Dyneema is collaborating with Aegis
Engineering Ltd., UK, a global manufac-
turer of personal protective apparel, on
a multi-threat prototype vest to assess
the new material for compliance with
international standards. .
FEATHERWEIGHT GOLD FOAM
Researchers at ETH Zurich, Switzer-
land, led by Raffaele Mezzenga, profes-
sor of food and soft materials, created a
lightweight foam made of gold. This 3D
mesh is the lightest form of the metal
ever produced. “The so-called aerogel is
a thousand times lighter than conven-
tional gold alloys. It is lighter than water
andalmost as light as air,” saysMezzenga.
The foam is 98 parts air. Of the two
parts solid material, more than four-
fifths are gold and less than one-fifth is
milk protein fibrils. This corresponds to
around 20 carat gold. Though the aero-
gel primarily consists of pores, it is nearly
impossible to differentiate it from con-
ventional gold with the naked eye, and
unlike its conventional form, it is mal-
leable by hand. The new material could
be specified in many applications where
gold is currently used, including jewelry,
chemical catalysis, and applications in-
volving light absorption and reflection.
The aerogel could also find use in pres-
sure sensors. When pressure increases,
the material compresses. This allows
the gold particles, which do not touch at
normal atmospheric pressures, to con-
tact one another and make the material
conductive.
Twenty carats of gold foam is lighter than
milk foam. Courtesy of Gustav Nyström
and Raffaele Mezzenga/ETH Zurich.