

A novel material with world record breaking surface area and water adsorption - jonbaer
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=133026&CultureCode=en

======
ChuckMcM
Its an interesting material but other than even more amazingly absorbent
diapers, or better dessicants, I'm struggling with what the applications are.
There are a list of uses for zeolites
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeolite#Uses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeolite#Uses))
which seems that these guys if they can make theirs cheaper and its better
could jump into, perhaps I'll be getting a new Brita water purifier "Now with
Upsalite!" or something?

Is there a materials scientist in the house that can help me out here?

~~~
durkie
I'm a materials scientist, but this isn't my background, so I'm just taking a
stab:

These materials have a lot of potential for several reasons: high surface area
(many reactions and processes are often rate-limited by surface exposure),
surface activity (not sure about metal carbonates, but some metal oxides for
example have a photocatalytic effect, where exposing a surface to light can
break down compounds adsorbed on the surface), and very fine (and potentially
controllable) pore size (with the potential to filter out things on a
molecular level -- so it could potentially be tailored for like isolating co2
from a gas stream, water purification, heavy metal uptake).

Just a few guesses.

And of course, since the research came out of a cold country, think of all the
applications for hockey rinks! Love that.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Thanks, the adsorbent one seems to be the most practical. I wonder what the
cost to produce this stuff is relative to zeolites.

------
dkural
Note that Plos One is not exactly the top journal one would publish such
"groundbreaking" research. In general I've found university press releases to
be little more than propaganda machines, and unreliable sources that do
particularly poorly in providing context.

------
spindritf
Saw it yesterday somewhere. Sounds rather impressive. I ordered a sample[1].

[1] [http://www.disruptivematerials.com/request-
sample/](http://www.disruptivematerials.com/request-sample/)

------
emhart
I love that this was the result of a mistake, and the brief note about the
only available reference material for part of their work being in Russian.
Sounds like the makings of an excellent story.

~~~
igravious
Agreed. Quoth he, "A Thursday afternoon in 2011, we slightly changed the
synthesis parameters of the earlier employed unsuccessful attempts, and by
mistake left the material in the reaction chamber over the weekend. Back at
work on Monday morning we discovered that a rigid gel had formed and after
drying this gel we started to get excited, says Johan Goméz de la Torre."

It is in fact slightly disturbing and somehow heartening how many discoveries
are the result of mishap.

------
solistice
I originally found this article confusing as "Uppsala" is a way to say "Ohh,
oops" in German, along with the discovery being by accident.

Still not entirely sure whether it's a real finding.

~~~
igravious
In fairness, it's a pretty famous Swedish university.

[http://www.uu.se/en/](http://www.uu.se/en/)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Uppsala_University_peop...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Uppsala_University_people)

~~~
solistice
As a native german speaker, I still think it's mindly confusing the Swedes
would name one of their universities that.

------
paul_f
There is an entire class of materials called MOFs (metal organic framework)
with similar characteristics. This is a highly interesting emerging science.

------
tocomment
Does this conduct heat pretty well? I have a couple applications for high
surface area high heat conducting materials.

------
tocomment
Would this make a good super capacitor?

