© Evan Dougherty, Michigan Engineering
Jiseok Gim, materials science and engineering PhD candidate, demonstrates loading a sample into the JEOL 3100R05 electron microscope in the Michigan Center for Materials.
Jiseok Gim, materials science and engineering PhD candidate, demonstrates loading a sample into the JEOL 3100R05 electron microscope in the Michigan Center for Materials.
More commonly known as mother-of-pearl, nacre's combination of hardness and resilience has mystified scientists for more than 80 years. If humans could mimic it, it could lead to a new generation of ultra-strong synthetic materials for structures, surgical implants and countless other applications.
"We humans can make tougher materials using unnatural environments, for example extreme heat and pressure. But we can't replicate the kind of nano-engineering that mollusks have achieved. Combining the two approaches could lead to a spectacular new generation of materials, and this paper is a step in that direction," said Robert Hovden, U-M assistant professor of materials science and engineering.
Researchers have known the basics of nacre's secret for decades — it's made of microscopic "bricks" of a mineral called aragonite, laced together with a "mortar" made of organic material. This bricks-and-mortar arrangement clearly lends strength, but nacre is far stronger than its materials suggest.
Hovden's team, which included U-M materials science graduate research assistant Jiseok Gim as well as geochemists from Australia's Macquarie University and elsewhere, worked together to crack the mystery.
Comment: These Google AI scientists seem to leave out the biggest reason their project is even being funded - and how it is likely to be implemented: for the technocratic subjugation of the domestic populace, and the powering of war against "adversaries" abroad; "and if a few cool quantum batteries can be produced for regular industrial consumption, well, that's fine too."