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Scientists Create Buoyant Aluminum

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday September 26 2017, @07:49AM   
from the unsinkable-beer-can dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

http://aluminiuminsider.com/researchers-confirm-discovery-floating-aluminium/

Like most common metals, aluminium lacks natural buoyancy. However, with a little rearranging of the metal’s natural molecular structure, one can produce an ultra-light crystalline form of the metal that is actually less dense than water and, as a result, floats upon it.

Research conducted by Utah State University Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry professor Alexander Boldyrev and published in the latest issue of The Journal of Physical Chemistry C has yielded just such a crystalline form using computational modeling.

“My colleagues’ approach to this challenge was very innovative,” explained Boldyrev. “They started with a known crystal lattice, in this case, a diamond, and substituted every carbon atom with an aluminum tetrahedron.”

Boldyrev’s colleagues, namely Iliya Getmanskii, Vitaliy Koval, Rusian Minyaev, and Vladimir Minkin of Southern Federal University in Rostov-on Don, Russia, confirmed the structure which is metastable and has a density of 0.61 grams per cubic centimeter. By comparison, conventional aluminium possesses a density of 2.7 grams per cubic centimeter.

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Original Submission

• Ohhh! I love bouyant Aluminium! Ohhh! I love bouyant Aluminium! (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 26 2017, @08:06AM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 26 2017, @08:06AM (#572973)

  The only thing better than "Transparent Aluminium", with whales. But speaking of whales, has anyone seen the White Whale? You all know of the one of which I speak!

  "Queequeg," said I, "let's go; this fellow has broken loose from somewhere; he's talking about something and somebody we don't know."

  "Stop!" cried the stranger. "Ye said true- ye hav'n't seen Old Thunder yet, have ye?"

  "Who's Old Thunder?" said I, again riveted with the insane earnestness of his manner.

  "Captain Ahab."

  "What! the captain of our ship, the Pequod?"

  "Aye, among some of us old sailor chaps, he goes by that name. Ye hav'n't seen him yet, have ye?"

  "No, we hav'n't. He's sick they say, but is getting better, and will be all right again before long."

  "All right again before long!" laughed the stranger, with a solemnly derisive sort of laugh. "Look ye; when Captain Ahab is all right, then this left arm of mine will be all right; not before."

  "What do you know about him?"

  "What did they tell you about him? Say that!"

  "They didn't tell much of anything about him; only I've heard that he's a good whale-hunter, and a good captain to his crew."

  "That's true, that's true- yes, both true enough. But you must jump when he gives an order. Step and growl; growl and go- that's the word with Captain Ahab. But nothing about that thing that happened to him off Cape Horn, long ago, when he lay like dead for three days and nights; nothing about that deadly skrimmage with the Spaniard afore the altar in Santa?- heard nothing about that, eh? Nothing about the silver calabash he spat into? And nothing about his losing his leg last voyage, according to the prophecy. Didn't ye hear a word about them matters and something more, eh? No, I don't think ye did; how could ye? Who knows it? Not all Nantucket, I guess. But hows'ever, mayhap, ye've heard tell about the leg, and how he lost it; aye, ye have heard of that, I dare say. Oh, yes, that every one knows a'most- I mean they know he's only one leg; and that a parmacetti took the other off."

  "My friend," said I, "what all this gibberish of yours is about, I don't know, and I don't much care; for it seems to me that you must be a little damaged in the head. But if you are speaking of Captain Ahab, of that ship there, the Pequod, then let me tell you, that I know all about the loss of his leg."

  The Captain of the SoylentNews, avast there me maties, we know nothing about the loss of his leg!

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• Re:Ohhh! I love bouyant Aluminium! (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday September 26 2017, @08:27AM

  by FatPhil (863) <reversethis-{if.fdsa} {ta} {tnelyos-cp}> on Tuesday September 26 2017, @08:27AM (#572981) Homepage

  Transparent aluminium was sooooo last season:
  https://phys.org/news/2017-07-russian-scientists-technology-production-transparent.html#nRlv
  (However, that wasn't the first transparent metal, that dates back to at least 2009: https://phys.org/news/2009-03-metal-transparent-high-pressure.html#nRlv )

  --
  Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves

  Parent