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Imagine something that bends and stretches like rubber, but conducts electricity the way metal does. As this ScienCentral News video reports, you don't have to imagine this— Metal Rubber™ is here. And it could make some amazing things a reality.
It's a Bird…It's a Plane…It's Metal Rubber
In flight, birds can alter the shape of their wings and bodies in order to fly better in varying conditions. What if a plane could do that, too? Such a plane would need to be made from a material that could bend and stretch like rubber, and direct changes in shape by conducting electrical signals, the way metal can.
Enter Metal Rubber— a new patented material created by a team of researchers headed by Richard Claus, professor of materials sciences and engineering, and electrical and computer engineering at Virginia Tech. Claus' team took six years to perfect Metal Rubber, collaborating with chemist Jennifer Lalli at NanoSonic, Inc., a Blacksburg, Virginia nanotechnology company of which Claus is president.
Metal Rubber looks like brown plastic wrap, and has some amazing properties, including elasticity. "We can stretch it to about 200 to 300 percent of its original length, and it relaxes back," says Claus. "It's very tough. We can expose it to chemicals. We can put it in jet fuel. We can hit it with acetone. We can boil it in water overnight, and it doesn't mechanically or chemically degrade. We can heat it up to about…700 Fahrenheit. It won't burn. We can drop it down to about…minus 167 degrees Fahrenheit, and it maintains its properties."
To make Metal Rubber, Claus and his team built it molecule by molecule, using a nanotechnology process they call "electrostatic molecular self-assembly," which means that Metal Rubber virtually assembles itself. "Molecular self-assembly is a process that's similar to the way that your bones grow," Claus explains. "Individual molecules are formed layer by layer on a surface."
Claus says Metal Rubber could be used to make "morphing aircraft structures," which change their shape during flight. image: NASA
The team starts with a plastic or glass substrate, or base, that they have given an electric charge, either positive or negative. Then they dip the base alternately into two water-based solutions, one containing plastic molecules that have been given a positive electrical charge, and the other containing plastic molecules with a negative charge. If the base has a positive charge, it goes into the negative molecules first, and they cling to the base, forming a layer only one molecule thick. After the next dipping, into positive molecules, a second ultra thin layer forms. Making Metal Rubber, Claus explains, is like "making a layer cake."
With Metal Rubber, Claus emphasizes, nanotechnology has produced "something that's physically our size instead of nanometer size" – with many potential uses. Currently, NanoSonic uses this inexpensive, environmentally-friendly process to make sheets of Metal Rubber approximately two feet square and up to several millimeters thick in less than a day. Soon, Claus says, more of the new material could be made faster, rolling off a press the way newspapers do.
Claus says that with Metal Rubber, nanotechnology has produced a material with many potential uses. One of the most exciting is to make what he calls "morphing aircraft structures. These are aircraft that dynamically change the shape of their wings and their control surfaces during flight," he explains. "Almost the way that a hawk might fly along, see prey, and change its shape to dive down. The hawk changes the shape of its body, and when it does that, it needs to be able to sense what the outside forces and pressures are so it knows how to fly. For a plane, you need a material that's mechanically flexible. But you also need a material with a surface that's controlled by sensors and electrical conductors that allow it to do that sensing and change shape accordingly. This material might allow sensors that can be flexed." Now NanoSonic is working in partnership with Lockheed Martin to explore Metal Rubber's potential in aerospace.
Once NanoSonic can ramp up production, Claus also expects to see Metal Rubber in artificial muscles for robots, stents and other biomedical products, cars, seat cushions, and even flexible TVs you could carry in your pocket. Metal Rubber™ is a registered trademark of NanoSonic, Inc. This research is registered with the U.S. Patent Office and was funded by NanoSonic, Inc.
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