Chinese scientists’ new ‘super-strong foam’ could form lightweight tank and troop armour

Chinese scientists have discovered a “super material” that is as light as a balloon yet as strong as metal, which could be developed by the mainland’s military into armour that protects troops and tanks without sacrificing mobility, a mainland study reports.

The foam-like material was created when tiny tubes of graphene were formed into a cellular structure that had the same stability as a diamond, said the study led by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Shanghai Institute of Ceramics.

Graphene, an extremely thin sheet of carbon with extraordinary properties, has attracted great interest among researchers in recent years.

It is about 207 times stronger than steel by weight and able to conduct heat and electricity with very high efficiency.

However, the new material was able to support something that was 40,000 times its own weight without bending, said the report in the latest issue of the journal, Advanced Materials.

One piece of the graphene foam withstood the impact of a blow that had a force of more than 14,500 pounds per square inch – almost as much pressure as is experienced at the deepest depth of the world’s ocean – about 10.9km – known as Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench, off the coast of the US island of Guam.