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9 Most Exotic Materials in the World
People are always trying to find new materials with more preeminent features. And among them are materials that seem to only come out of science fiction movies …
Here are nine of the most bizarre materials on the planet:
9. Vantablack — The world’s blackest material
Vantablack is one of the darkest man-made matter created in 2014 by engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US.
Vantablack is made of a vertically linked carbon nanotube array, this material can absorb 99.96% light. It is capable of covering a natural yellow diamond weighing 16.78 carats, turning the sparkling stone into a dark black. In terms of applicability, Vantablack is used in telescopes and cameras to prevent flare.
8. Wurtzite boron nitride (w-BN) and Lonsdaleite — The material is harder than diamond
If asked which is the hardest material in the world, many people will answer diamond. However, thanks to the development of science and technology, people have found that matter is harder than diamond.
In 2009, studies at Shanghai Jiaotong University (China) and the University of Nevada (USA) announced that two materials can beat diamond in terms of hardness. These are Wurtzite boron nitride (w-BN) and Lonsdaleite.
w-BN is structurally similar to diamond but it also has more Boron and Nitrogen. In nature, w-BN is created by the tremendous pressure and heat of an erupting volcano. Thus, in order to create this substance, humans would have to create explosions like that, which is extremely difficult to do.
Due to being a rare material, w-BN indexes are based only on simulations running on a computer. Accordingly, scientists believe that w-BN is harder and more chemically stable than diamond at high temperatures (diamond when exposed to high temperatures, the chemical and physical properties will no longer be…
