Boeing just released this awesome video of ‘the world’s lightest material’

The initial prototypes for the microlattice were made from a nickel-phosphorus alloy.

Metal made of air sounds like a material from a science fiction film that will never cross the boundaries of reality.

Boeing, an aerospace company known for its airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets and satellites, released a video of the microlattice metal first developed by a team of scientists from the University of California, Irvine, HRL Laboratories and the California Institute of Technology in 2011. You know the potential is huge.

In a video for Boeing, Yang stated that she envisions onboard luggage carriers being built from the new metal.

Boeing showcased its research with what it’s calling the “Lightest”.

In the video above, Sophia Yang, a research scientist at HRL Laboratories (a joint Boeing venture), explains that the microlattice could be used in something like the egg drop challenge, to protect an egg being dropped from 25 storeys with very little material required. This makes bones hard to break, but also lessens the strain on the muscles which have to carry all the load.

‘The trick is to fabricate a lattice of interconnected hollow tubes with a wall thickness of 100 nanometers, 1,000 times thinner than a human hair, ‘ Dr. Tobias Schaedler of HRL said.

The material is said to be 99.99 percent air. If you were to crush it even more than halfway through, it would just bounce back to its initial size and shape. Silica aerogels – the world’s lightest solid materials – have a density as low as 1.0mg per cubic cm. Structure maters a lot.

Boeing believes microlattice could be used to make aeroplane components such as the side wall panel, overhead compartments or the floor panel.

Yang also highlights the material’s ability to absorb high levels of impact.