Softer than rubber but stronger than steel

Researchers from the Hokkaido University have created a material that is really soft and flexible but it is tough like metal.

According to its makers, the newly created material is as flexible as a rubber but five times stronger than carbon steel.

The product was made through combining hydrogels (found in contact lenses) with glass fibers. The end result turned out to be tough but malleable network created to maximize elasticity. The lead researcher Jian Ping Gong informed CNN, “It’s the strongest soft material ever obtained by human beings.”

The team stated in their research published in Advanced Functional Material that the fiber-reinforced compound demonstrated ‘extremely high toughness and tensile properties, far superior to those of the neat components, indicating a synergistic effect’. The material is almost 100 times stronger than normal hydrogels and 25 times tougher than regular glass fiber fabric.

Gong was motivated to create this material from nature. She expressed, “Sometimes when I see a flower coming out from a very hard floor — concrete crack — I was wondering why the small flower, such a small lovely flower, has such a big large energy to come out. This gel itself looks very soft and weak but it can create a huge amount of energies.”

Futurism reported Gong explaining the practical benefits of this material in a press release. “The material has multiple potential applications because of its reliability, durability and flexibility. For example, in addition to fashion and manufacturing uses, it could be used as artificial ligaments and tendons, which are subject to strong load-bearing tensions.”

Apart from these uses, the substance could also be used in sports clothing and protective gear like helmets or the bullet proof vests. Being environment friendly and containing 40% water, Gong thinks that the material could possibly have really good performance against a bullet.

“If our material can … make people live in better ways, I think we will be very, very happy,” Gong concluded.