Most Convoluted Crystal Ever Made Has Enough Surface Area To Cover A Desk, A Gram Could Cover a Foot - Polidicks

[QUOTE]Today in cool stuff happening in university labs: Northwestern researchers have created two new record-setting synthetic materials with the greatest internal surface areas ever seen. There are a lot of potential applications for these metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), named NU-109 and NU-110, but first the mind-bending fact: if you were to unfold a crystal of NU-110 the size of a grain of salt, the surface area would cover a desktop. If you were to do the same with a single gram of NU-110, the internal surface area would cover one-and-a-half football fields. One kilogram? Something like seven square kilometers, or nearly three square miles. That’s a lot of surface area packed into a really small space. MOFs are basically tiny cage-like structures made of a bunch of organic linkages fused together by metal atoms, creating a molecule that is extremely porous and is arranged in such a way that a lot of internal surface area is exposed. They hold a lot of promise for materials science in general, and more specifically for things like storing natural gas in a state that could more easily be pumped into vehicles. The technology is currently being developed and commercialized by a NU spinout company called NuMat Technologies. [img]http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/Screen%20Shot%202012-09-12%20at%203.23.59%20PM.png[/img] [I]A small quantity of the metal-organic framework on the right contains enough internal surface area to blanket the high-rise on the left. Farha et. al. via Journal of the American Chemical Society[/I][/quote] Source: [url]http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-09/tiny-synthetic-particles-have-enough-surface-area-cover-desk[/url]

i cant undreestandn

[QUOTE=lifehole;37684417]i cant undreestandn[/QUOTE] 2science4u

i wish i understood this shit it sounds so intriguing.

How can you consistently define the surface area of a molecule

[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;37684473]How can you consistently define the surface area of a molecule[/QUOTE] With science

[QUOTE=Oicani Gonzales;37684490][media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO61D9x6lNY[/media][/QUOTE] how is sphere eversion relevant to the thread

It's not a difficult concept. Just imagine a cube that's, let's say 2 units wide, tall, and deep - it's total surface area is 24 units squared, and its total volume is 8 units cubed. If you imagine cutting that block up into 8 smaller cubes (each 1 unit wide, tall and deep) the total volume of your cubes is still the same (8 units cubed), but all of a sudden your surface area is larger - double, actually, at 48 units squared. Basically, the rate and nature of chemical reactions is due in large part to the surfaces of reacting materials (because that's where the reactants are actually making contact - at their boundaries; their surfaces). If you increase the surface area of something, the reaction rate increases quite markedly because there's simply more reaction surfaces available.

Man, I really know this is complicated science when Popsci can't boil it down to layman's terms and even FP is having a hard time understanding.

[QUOTE=sltungle;37684509]It's not a difficult concept. Just imagine a cube that's, let's say 2 units wide, tall, and deep - it's total surface area is 24 units squared, and its total volume is 8 units cubed. If you imagine cutting that block up into 8 smaller cubes (each 1 uni wide, tall and deep) the total volume of your cubes is still the same (8 units cubed), but all of a sudden your surface area is larger - double, actually, at 48 units squared. Basically, the rate and nature of chemical reactions is due in large part to the surfaces of reacting materials (because that's where the reactants are actually making contact - at their boundaries; their surfaces). If you increase the surface area of something, the reaction rate increases quite markedly because there's simply more reaction surfaces available.[/QUOTE] nerd

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;37684525]Man, I really know this is complicated science when Popsci can't boil it down to layman's terms and even FP is having a hard time understanding.[/QUOTE] this is really not difficult to understand

How can it be the size of a grain of salt but be also as large as a desk Just what

[QUOTE=Magmacow358;37684593]How can it be the size of a grain of salt but be also as large as a desk Just what[/QUOTE] volume vs. surface area

[QUOTE=Magmacow358;37684593]How can it be the size of a grain of salt but be also as large as a desk Just what[/QUOTE] You ever played Jenga? Imagine you removed one of the central blocks (that's flanked on either side, and above and bellow) and stuck it on the top of the tower. Volume of the tower is the same, right? But the surface area has increased. Before you removed the block and put it on top you had 2 little square faces of that individual block exposed to the world, after you've moved it you've exposed 4 rectangular faces WITHIN the tower to the world, and a further 3 faces of the block you put on top (you've also lost one rectangular face on top of the tower by covering it with the moved block, but you've still made a net gain of 6 new exposed surfaces). [editline]16th September 2012[/editline] And yes I realise successive layers of a Jenga tower are rotated 90 degrees to one another, but fuck off, the surface area exposed is still the same as I'm explaining it to be.

[QUOTE=sltungle;37684509]It's not a difficult concept. Just imagine a cube that's, let's say 2 units wide, tall, and deep - it's total surface area is 24 units squared, and its total volume is 8 units cubed. If you imagine cutting that block up into 8 smaller cubes (each 1 unit wide, tall and deep) the total volume of your cubes is still the same (8 units cubed), but all of a sudden your surface area is larger - double, actually, at 48 units squared. Basically, the rate and nature of chemical reactions is due in large part to the surfaces of reacting materials (because that's where the reactants are actually making contact - at their boundaries; their surfaces). If you increase the surface area of something, the reaction rate increases quite markedly because there's simply more reaction surfaces available.[/QUOTE] Magic, got it.

I'm wondering, is it a strong materiel once unfolded? [editline]16th September 2012[/editline] or is it even possible to unfold?

[QUOTE=June;37685007]I'm wondering, is it a strong materiel once unfolded? [editline]16th September 2012[/editline] or is it even possible to unfold?[/QUOTE] probably possible, I wouldn't call it reasonable. I doubt it's very strong if it's not folded.

Holy shit, science. Next thing we know we can engineer ourselves an actual hammerspace.

[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;37684473]How can you consistently define the surface area of a molecule[/QUOTE] Electron density. EDIT: Which parts of the molecule are accessible to solvent.

[QUOTE=ButtsexV3;37685044]probably possible, I wouldn't call it reasonable. I doubt it's very strong if it's not folded.[/QUOTE] Too bad, the possibilities would be endless if it was.

They should try to make these out of platinum or other things commonly used as catalysts. Although I guess they might be too compact to get a proper interaction with whichever process they'd be used to catalyse?

This would be useful with capacitors to replace batteries.

Drop a cube of that stuff in a bottle of coke light. Wham, five megaton explosion.

[QUOTE=V12US;37685256]Drop a cube of that stuff in a bottle of coke light. Wham, five megaton explosion.[/QUOTE] Why coke light? Is coke's explosion too big?

[QUOTE=Grocel;37685856]Why coke light? Is coke's explosion too big?[/QUOTE] Maybe the explosion is on a diet?

[QUOTE=Magmacow358;37684593]How can it be the size of a grain of salt but be also as large as a desk Just what[/QUOTE] How can your small intestine have a surface area of 250 square metres, how can your lungs have a surface area of 70 square metres? Like JohnnyMo1 said, volume does not equal surface area. For instance, using a fairly common example, the Mentos in diet coke thing happens because the surface of the mentos is full of pits and ridges that allows gas to form in those pockets, the reactive surface area of the mentos is huge compared to its size. Activated carbon is the same, it has an insane degree of porosity to the point where a single gram has a surface area of 500 metres squared with the potential for an even larger surface area if it's given certain treatments during production. Because of the large surface area it reacts readily with most other substances because there's simply so many places for a liquid or gas to bind itself to.

This isn't that hard to understand. I mean, usually I don't understand science threads, but this time I did

A Football pitch or an American Football field?

Is that a metric or imperial skyscraper?

First thing that came to mind is how this thing is similar to aerogels, don't know why that happened. However, this is pretty amazing. I could easily imagine this being used for energy storage or for insulation or ultralight materials. Wonder how much it costs to produce and at what quantities it can retain its properties at.