A UF team created highly porous materials by combining the building blocks of Plexiglas and Styrofoam in a special process. After the mix was heated, the plexiglass-like components evaporated, leaving the polystyrene behind and creating trillions of extremely small gaps. A one-gram sample contained within its pores the surface area of an entire tennis court.
“It's like what a sculptor might do with stone, where you gradually subtract more and more until you have what you want,” says researcher Brent Sumerlin. “It’s like having a very small mesh in a screen, which is potentially good for purifying wastewater … It also works as a high-performance membrane, which is key to many batteries.”
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