Microlattice - LIGHTEST METAL EVER

The micro-lattice is a 3D open-cellular polymer structure and can often be compared to something like a bone structure. In your bone structures, the outside of your bone is very rigid, but on the inside it's actually mostly hollow where you basically have an open-cellular structure, so they aren't easily crushed yet lightweight at the same time.

"Boeing has developed the world's lightest material.The entire structure is basically 99.99% air."

Video Credits: Boeing

Boeing 

The micro-lattice is a 3 Dimensional open-cellular polymer structure and can often be compared to something like a bone structure. In your bone structures, the outside of your bone is very rigid, but on the inside it's... actually mostly hollow where you basically have an open-cellular structure, so they aren't easily crushed yet lightweight at the same time.

If you want to look at just properties in general, then one would be compression in the sense of energy absorption, and then the second would be lightweight in terms of having very hollow tubes. So let's say you have the egg drop challenge that, you know, a lot of students have in school, and they need to drop an egg from 25 stories building and protect that egg. They would probably wrap it in many, many layers of bubble wrap and then drop it and hope for the best.

But what we can do is back design the micro-lattice to absorb the force that the egg feels. So instead of having an egg that's wrapped in 3 feet of bubble wrap, now you have a much smaller package that your egg can sit in. One of the main applications that they've been looking into is structural components for aerospace. 

So when we get on an airplane and leaning against the sidewall panel and putting our luggage in the stow bin or when walking along the floor panels, the micro-lattice could be used in one of these applications. In the future, the material can help Boeing to save a lot of weight to make the airplanes more fuel efficient.

It's really exciting to see things that can eventually go into a real product that a lot of users can interact with.

"Micro-lattice is one of the strongest and lightest materials known to science."