An 'elastic ice' that can bend like wire could one day be used to detect air pollution

ice cubes being cut — Though the idea of ice bending rather than breaking or cracking seems impossible, scientists have managed it.
YouTube / Insider

Chinese researchers have developed thin strands of ice that can be bent and curled like wires.
The discovery could have many applications, like transmitting light, as is done in fiber optics.
The ice is made by cooling water vapor with liquid nitrogen and forming microfibers.
See more stories on Insider's business page.

Materials science is going through a golden age - new, more sustainable, faster, or more efficient solutions for fields such as medicine, and construction are coming to the fore on an almost weekly basis.

This new tech has a broad range of possible applications - from fungi as a material for buildings and vegan spider silk to replace plastic, or developing biomaterials from common waste like olive pits.

More recently in new material innovations, Chinese scientists have created flexible ice with thin strands that can bend and curl like wire, Gizmodo reported.

In a research article published in Science, the researchers described their discovery as "elastic ice microfibers."

Instead of cracking or breaking, a video published by New Scientist shows that when pressure is exerted on it, the ice is elastic.

The scientists created the ice by transferring water vapor into a small chamber that was then cooled with liquid nitrogen.

The next step was to put an electrified tungsten pin inside the chamber and electrify it to 2,000 volts.

The process pulls in water vapor and slowly forms the ice microfibers.

The final step to complete the breakthrough was to fluctuate the temperature of the chamber to see how the ice strands behaved, which proved to be incredibly flexible at the coldest temperatures.

At the maximum cold temperature, the microfibers displayed elastic properties, bending at a maximum deformation of 10.9%.

By contrast, normal ice has an elastic deformation of 0.3%.

The flexible ice approaches the theoretical limit of how flexible ice is supposed to be, at 15%. The ice is also incredibly transparent. This means the microfibers could be used to transmit light, similar to fiber-optic cables.

The scientists said the tech could eventually be used to create tiny sensors capable of detecting air pollution.

"They can guide light back and forth," physicist at Zhejiang University in China Limin Tong, part of the team responsible for developing the ice, told the New York Times.

One of the many unusual applications the special ice could be used for is the creation of air pollution sensors, due to the fact that particles like soot can adhere to the ice.

The ice could help with the collection of data on the amount and type of pollution there might be in a given area.

"The discovery of these flexible ice fibers opens opportunities for exploring ice physics and ice-related technology on micro- and nanometer scales," the paper said.

Read the original article on Business Insider