Graphene is strong - about 200 times greater than steel, but new research has shown that folding graphene nanoribbons can make a material that's ever stronger. The Chinese researchers call the new material Grafold.
The researchers say that while graphene is very high tensile strength (i.e. it is difficult to pull it apart) it is not strong under compression and cannot be squeezed. Grafold, however can withstand much larger amounts of compression (10-25 GPa depending on the structure of grafold compared with less than 2 GPa for graphene). The tensile strength is almost similar to graphene.
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Posted: Sep 20,2011 by Ron Mertens