Scientists have discovered an extremely durable material that does not expand in heat: it promises a revolution in the aerospace and medical industries.

The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, a Cold War spy plane, refueled the runway. It dripped like a scar because its titanium body just wasn’t airtight. Engineers had to make room for the metal to expand as friction heated up to over 3,000 km / h. the structure of the plane.

And that doesn’t surprise you. While he was still in school, he learned the fact that heated bodies are expanding. But, seriously?

Researchers at the University of New South Wales have inadvertently developed a material that maintains a stable volume between -269 and +1126 degrees Celsius. And that is unbelievable. This material consists of scandium, aluminum, tungsten and oxygen; only scandium is a rare and expensive substance. The researcher intends to replace this component and thus reduce the cost of his highly stable material.

At the time, scientists were investigating various compounds. They did not try to create such a stable material and noticed this unusual property by accident. In fact, they don’t even know how this material maintains the same volume at different temperatures. That thermal energy must in any case act on the molecular structure, but somehow a balance is achieved in it that allows this material not to expand.

Orthorhombic Sc1.5Al0.5W3O12, as the material was called by scientists, will not replace titanium. But this material could be used in aviation, electronics and medicine. Such an accurate and reliable material would also be very useful in scientific equipment.

Prepared by: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chemmater.1c01007