Carbon Nanofoam
Interesting stuff - one gallon of it weighs one quarter of one ounce.
From the
NY Times science section:
bq. Carbon was known to come in four configurations: diamond crystals, flat sheets of graphite, soccer-ball-shaped cages known as buckyballs and rolled-up cylinders called nanotubes.
bq. The new form also consists of narrow tubes, but the tubes are connected in a willowy lattice.
bq. "When you see it in the naked eye, it's just flakes," said Dr. John Giapintzakis, a researcher at the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas in Crete, who examined samples of nanofoam. "With an optical microscope, it looks like a sponge."
bq. Dr. Giapintzakis's surprise discovery is that nanofoam, unlike the other four forms of carbon, is magnetic. In the first few hours after it forms, nanofoam is attractive enough to stick to a refrigerator. The magnetism then wanes and disappears.
Posted by DaveH at April 7, 2004 4:48 PM