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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.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 26 2017, @10:52AM (4 children)
More space between metal atoms in crystal lattice means more hydrogen can be absorbed.
Hopefully it won't make it even more explosive if exposed to oxygen ...
Hmm, what happens if D-soaked light aluminum suddenly collapses?
Will we have nuclear fusion?
If yes, will we have deep sub-critical nuclear munition?
If yes, how brave a grunt has to be to carry around a weapon with a full magazine of rounds which each can go off "just because I'm metastable"?
OK, my thoughts are starting to disperse now. Someone please jump in and continue.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday September 26 2017, @12:23PM (3 children)
If you don't find a way to keep it there, I reckon all that space is useless.
I really doubt it - after all, we are dealing with energy barriers (for fusion) at the order 10 keV.
Now, suppose that a cubic cage of 8 Al atoms would collapse with such a force to cause two D to fuse - which means 500keV stored by 8 atoms
27g of Al is a mole - Avogadro's number says 6.023e23 atoms.
Which mean 7.25e22 individual cages of 8 atoms, with no corners/sides shared between them
If each cage can perform a work of 10keV and 1keV is 1.6e-16, the entire energy in those 7.25e22 cages will be 120.46MJ. That's the equivalent of 28kg of TNT in 27g of metastable floating aluminium.
Without a weird screening effect on the coulomb field of the trapped hydrogen (and lowering the coulomb barrier 100-1000 times less), fusion's not gonna happen.
Feeling of guts: about 200g-300g of pure-ethanol-induced bravery for an 85kg grunt body? I don;t know, perhaps eth-fueled can step in with his expertise.
Or perhaps 3 to 5 worth of American-football concussions?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday September 26 2017, @12:25PM
Correction "which means
500keV10keV stored by 8 atoms".The following computations uses the 10keV value though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday September 26 2017, @04:02PM
28kg vs 27 g is a factor of about a thousand. Given that TNT is actually pretty shitty energy storage, that's a lot closer to being possible than I would have guessed.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Tuesday September 26 2017, @07:21PM
> 3 to 5 worth of American-football concussions
New unit for behavior : My congressman is running at about 76 AFC.