New Material Created by MIT Strong as Steel, Light as Plastic

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a new material that is as strong as steel and as light as plastic.

According to USA Today, the new material, a type of plastic, has twice the strength of steel while being only one-sixth the density.

"We don't usually think of plastics as being something that you could use to support a building, but with this material, you can enable new things," Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and author of the study responsible for the material, said.

"It has very unusual properties and we're very excited about that."

One of the unique properties of the material noted in the study, which was initially thought to be impossible, is that the "two-dimensional polymer" can "self-assemble into sheets, unlike all other polymers, which form one-dimensional, spaghetti-like chains."

Matthew Tirrell, dean of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago, said that "an important aspect of these new polymers is that they are readily processable in solution, which will facilitate numerous new applications where high strength to weight ratio is important, such as new composite or diffusion barrier materials."

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