Figure one/three

The paper industry produces a lot of pre-consumer waste that can easily be put to use in various ways. A group of scientists at the University of Jaén in Spain have come up with a way- -to turn paper industry byproducts into eco-friendly bricks. The production process for the bricks is less time-intensive than for traditional bricks, making them more cost-effective to produce.

The process is surprisingly simple. The paper waste is mixed with clay and with sludge left over from waste water purification, then the mixture is pressurized and extruded into long pieces. The long pieces are cut into- -small, brick-sized pieces and then fired in a kiln. All told, the bricks are great insulators but not quite as strong as traditional bricks. The team behind the development of the new bricks is working on fixing the problems inherent in making building materials from paper waste. With the addition of other types of waste materials, they may eventually develop bricks that can compete on the same level as traditional clay bricks.

Figure two/three Miraculous Graphene Oxide Flakes

Removing radioactive material from water is an incredibly complicated task thanks to the fact that there is no easy way to separate the two. Future disaster recovery crews could have an easier time of it, however, thanks to flakes of graphene oxide. Adding the flakes to contaminated water causes them to clump up into solids with the radioactive material trapped within. The clumps can then be scooped up easily.

The solids are still radioactive and must be treated as such, but they can then be used to re-capture the radioactive material. After burning the graphene oxide, a cake of radioactive material is left and can then be re-used for another application. The graphene oxide flakes are inexpensive and biodegradable in addition to trapping radioactive ions very effectively, making this solution ideal for cleaning up large-scale radioactive disasters.

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Up until recently, aerogel was known as the world’s least dense material. With a density of just 1 mg/cm³, aerogel is nearly all air but incredibly strong. Now, a group of researchers at two German universities have created an even less dense material called aerographite. The material, made of a network of hollow carbon tubes, boasts a density of less than 0.2 mg/cm³, making it nearly all air.

Seen here in electron microscope images, aerographite is barely there at all. It looks like it would snap under any type of pressure, but it can be compressed by a factor of a thousand before popping right back, unharmed. It conducts electricity and can support more than 40,000 times its own weight. The applications for this crazy material include ultra-lightweight batteries and who knows what else – give a bunch of scientists a wonder material and they’re bound to do something pretty cool with it.