There are 6 "strongest materials" on Earth that are harder than diamonds (2023)

Carbon is one of the most fascinating elements in nature, with chemical and physical properties like no other element. With only six protons in its nucleus, it is the lightest and most abundant element capable of forming a series of complex bonds. All known life forms are based on carbon, since its atomic properties allow it to combine with up to four other atoms at the same time. The possible geometries of these bonds also allow carbon to self-assemble into a stable crystal lattice, especially under high pressures. When conditions are right, carbon atoms can form a solid, ultra-hard structure known as diamond.

Although diamonds are commonly known as the hardest material on earth, there are actually six materials that are the hardest. Diamonds remain one of the hardest and most abundant natural materials on earth, but these six materials top it.

Grant: There are three earth materials that are not as hard as diamond, but are nevertheless very interesting for their resistance in a variety of ways. With the advent of nanotechnology, along with the development of understanding of modern materials at the nanoscale, we now realize that there are many different metrics for evaluating physically interesting and extreme materials.

From a biological point of view, spider silk is considered the most resistant. With a higher strength-to-weight ratio than most traditional materials like aluminum or steel, it also excels at being thin and sticky. Of all the spiders in the worldDarwin's bark spidersit has the toughest: ten times stronger than kevlar. It is so thin and light that about a pound (454 grams) of Darwin's bark spider silk would form a thread long enough to trace the circumference of the entire planet.

For a natural mineralSilicium carbide— occurs naturally in the form ofMoissanit- is only slightly less hard than diamond. (Still tougher than any spider web.) Grains of silicon carbide, a chemical mixture of silicon and carbon, which belong to the same family on the periodic table, have been mass-produced since 1893. They can be bonded together using a high-strength alloy. Low-temperature, pressured process known as sintering to produce extremely hard ceramic materials.

These materials are not only useful in a variety of applications that take advantage of toughness, such as automobile brakes and clutches, plating on body armor, and even armored battle armor suitable for tanks, but they also have semiconducting properties that are incredibly useful for their use in electronics.

For the first time, tiny spheres of silicon dioxide have been produced that range in diameter from 50 nanometers to just 2 nanometers.about 20 years ago at the Department of Energy's Sandia National LaboratoriesWhat's remarkable about these nanospheres is that they are hollow, can self-assemble into spheres, and even nest inside each other while still being the hardest material known to man, only slightly less hard than diamond.

Self-assembly is an incredibly powerful tool in nature, but biological materials are weak compared to synthetic ones. These self-assembling nanoparticlescan be used to create custom materialswith applications ranging from better water purifiers to more efficient solar cells, from faster catalytic converters to cutting-edge electronics. However, the dream technology of these self-assembling nanospheres are printable bulletproof vests that are customized to the user's specifications.

Diamonds are, of course, harder than all of these and still rank seventh on the all-time list of the hardest materials found or made on earth. Although they have been surpassed by other natural (but rare) and man-made synthetic materials, they still hold an important record.

Diamonds remain the most scratch resistant material known to man. Metals like titanium are significantly less resistant to scratches and even extremely hard ceramics or tungsten carbide cannot compete with diamonds in terms of hardness or scratch resistance. Other crystals known for their extreme hardness, such as rubies or sapphires, have still lagged behind diamonds.

But six materials surpassed even the much-vaunted diamond in hardness.

6.)Wurtzit-BornitratInstead of carbon, you can make a crystal out of any number of other atoms or compounds and one of them is boron nitride (BN), where elements 5 and 7 on the periodic table come together to form a multitude of odds. . It can be amorphous (not crystalline), hexagonal (similar to graphite), cubic (similar to diamond but slightly weaker), and wurtzite-shaped.

The last of these forms is extremely rare, but also extremely difficult. Formed by volcanic eruptions, it has only been discovered in trace amounts, which means that we have never experimentally tested its hardness properties. However, it forms a different type of crystal lattice, tetrahedral rather than face-centered cubic.That is 18% harder than diamond., according to the latest simulations.

5.)Lonsdaleíta. Imagine you have a meteor full of carbon, and therefore containing graphite, flying through our atmosphere and colliding with planet Earth. While you can think of a falling meteor as an incredibly hot body, only the outer layers get hot; The interior remains cold for most (or possibly all) of its journey to Earth.

However, upon impact with the Earth's surface, the internal pressures become greater than any other natural process on the surface of our planet, causing the graphite to compress into a crystalline structure. However, it does not have the cubic lattice of a diamond, but a hexagonal lattice, which can reach 58% more hardness than diamonds. Although actual Lonsdaleit examples contain enough impurities to make them softer than diamonds, an impurity-free graphite meteorite hitting Earth would undoubtedly produce a material harder than any terrestrial diamond.

4.)Dyneema. Next we leave the realm of natural substances. Dyneema, a thermoplastic polyethylene polymer, is unusual in that it has an exceptionally high molecular weight. Most of the molecules we know of are chains of atoms that add up to a few thousand atomic mass units (protons and/or neutrons). ButUHMWPE (for ultra high molecular weight polyethylene)it has extremely long chains with a molecular mass of millions of atomic mass units.

With very long chains for their polymers, intermolecular interactions are significantly improved, creating a very strong material. In fact, it is so strong that it has the highest impact resistance of any known thermoplastic.the strongest fiber in the world, and outperforms all mooring and towing lines. Although it is lighter than water, it can stop bullets and has 15 times the strength of a comparable amount of steel.

3.)Palladium Microalloy Glass. It's important to realize that there are two important properties that all physical materials possess: strength, which is the amount of force it can withstand before deforming, and toughness, which is the amount of energy it takes to break or break it. . Most ceramics are strong but not durable and will break if clawed or even dropped from a small height. Elastic materials like rubber can absorb a lot of energy, but they deform easily and are not hard at all.

Most glassy materials are brittle: strong but not particularly hard. Even reinforced glass like Pyrex or Gorilla Glass isn't particularly strong on the material scale. But in 2011, researchers developed a new five-element glass microalloy (Phosphorus, silicon, germanium, silverand palladium), where the palladium provides a pathway for shear banding, allowing the glass to plastically deform rather than fracture. It outperforms all grades of steel, as well as every other below it on this list, for its combination of toughness and toughness. It is the hardest non-carbon material.

2.)Buckypapier. It has been known since the late 20th century that there is a form of carbon that is even harder than diamond: carbon nanotubes. By joining carbon in a hexagonal shape, it can hold a rigid cylindrical structure more stable than any other structure known to man. If you take a bunch of carbon nanotubes and make a macroscopic sheet out of them, you can make a thin sheet out of them: Bucky paper.

Each individual nanotube is only 2 to 4 nanometers in diameter, but each one is incredibly strong and resilient. It is only 10% of the weight of steel.but it is a hundred times stronger. It is flame retardant, extremely thermally conductive, has tremendous electromagnetic shielding properties, and can lead to materials science, electronics, military, and even biological applications. ButBuckypaper cannot be made 100% of nanotubes, which perhaps keeps it away from the top spot on this list.

1.)graphics. Finally: a hexagonal lattice of carbon, a single atom thick. It is a sheet of graphene, possibly the most revolutionary material developed and used in the 21st century. It is the basic component of carbon nanotubes, and the applications are constantly expanding. Graphene is currently a multi-billion dollar industry and is predicted to grow to a multi-billion dollar industry in just a few decades.

The strongest material known for its thickness, it is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity, transmitting almost 100% of light. EITHERNobel Prize in Physics 2010went to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for pioneering experiments with graphene, and commercial applications have only increased. To date, graphene is the thinnest material known, and the gap of just six years between Geim and Novoselov's work and their Nobel Prize is one of the shortest in the history of physics.

The quest to make materials harder, stronger, more scratch resistant, lighter, stronger, etc., will probably never end. If humanity can push the limits of the materials available to us further than ever before, the applications of what becomes viable can only expand. Generations ago, the idea of ​​microelectronics, transistors, or the ability to manipulate individual atoms was certainly unique to science fiction. Today they are so common that we take them for granted.

As we enter the age of nanotechnology in full force, materials like the ones described here become increasingly important and ubiquitous to our quality of life. It's wonderful to live in a civilization where diamonds are no longer the hardest known material; The scientific advances we make benefit society as a whole. As the 21st century progresses, we will all see what is suddenly possible with these new materials.