German scientists recently discovered a new lighter than air material, aerographite, which is a mesh of opaque black carbon tubes that’s flexible, waterproof, conducts electricity and springs back to its original shape after being squashed.
“You can hold it,” Dr. Rainer Adelung told the Star. “Although it has almost no gravity.”
“Our first experiments with lithium ion batteries show we have been able to send quite high currents through the material,” he added.
Certain types of batteries, such as car batteries, are known for being extremely heavy, and its application towards car batteries could in turn reduce fuel consumption and ultimately improve energy efficiency because the engine would not have to work as hard to keep the car moving.
Some other applicable uses proposed by Adelung’s team included wearable computing, filtration and insulation, although these have not been fully explored yet. In theory, this can also be used for anything that requires a battery, which could not only drop the weight of these items, but, in the case of the car battery, also save the environment.
Adelung was so confident in his discovery that he said, “This is holy grail that everyone is looking for: a microbattery. This looks very promising.”