{"id":106857,"date":"2020-05-09T22:04:20","date_gmt":"2020-05-10T05:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/rubber-exoskeleton-lets-liquid-metal-structures-retain-their-shape"},"modified":"2020-05-09T22:04:20","modified_gmt":"2020-05-10T05:04:20","slug":"rubber-exoskeleton-lets-liquid-metal-structures-retain-their-shape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/rubber-exoskeleton-lets-liquid-metal-structures-retain-their-shape","title":{"rendered":"Rubber \u201cexoskeleton\u201d lets liquid metal structures retain their shape"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/rubber-exoskeleton-lets-liquid-metal-structures-retain-their-shape.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This could allow for nanosuit armor :3.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Imagine if there were a metallic device that could be transported all squished down into a compact ball, but that would automatically \u201cbloom\u201d out into its useful form when heated. Well, that may soon be possible, thanks to a newly developed liquid metal lattice.<\/p>\n<p>Led by Asst. Prof. Pu Zhang, a team of scientists at New York\u2019s Bingham University started by 3D printing lattice-type structures out of an existing metal known as Field\u2019s alloy. Named after its inventor, chemist Simon Quellen Field, the alloy consists of a mixture of bismuth, indium and tin. It also melts when heated to just 62 \u00b0C (144 \u00b0F), but then re-solidifies upon cooling.<\/p>\n<p>Utilizing a combination of vacuum casting and a technique known as <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Conformal_coating\" target=\"_blank\">conformal coating<\/a>, those alloy lattices were subsequently covered with a layer of rubber. As long as the ambient temperature stayed below 62 degrees, the resulting structures remained rigid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This could allow for nanosuit armor :3. Imagine if there were a metallic device that could be transported all squished down into a compact ball, but that would automatically \u201cbloom\u201d out into its useful form when heated. Well, that may soon be possible, thanks to a newly developed liquid metal lattice. Led by Asst. Prof. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1489,1499],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3d-printing","category-cyborgs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}