Glass that's Stronger than Steel

technologyreview.com

17 points·sahaj··8 comments

The article mentioned dental implants as a possible use, but they also mentioned it has a very high silver content. I would have thought, given silver's relatively high reactivity, that it wouldn't be suitable for dental use. I'd be interested in hearing from someone with a chemistry background on this.

20 to 35% of amalgam fillings are silver so this material has much smaller silver content than most metallic looking fillings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalgam_(dentistry)

Interesting. Thanks for the link.

Silver is also has anti-bacterial properties if I recall.

NASA supposedly uses silver elements in ISS crew clothes to kill bacteria and eliminate odors

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2009-07-30-astron...

It would be perfect for fillings.

It only mentions the silver as examples. The stuff they use is using palladium. Unlike silver, it produces tons of the bands that blocks it from fracturing like silver.

But the interesting part isn't the material used, but the demonstration of how to make glass thats stronger then steel. So now they just get mixing/playing and see which cheap material is best to do this with.

> A new material might make very robust dental implants.

I stopped reading after that. When these "Wonder Materials" are actually for sale is when its time to tell everyone.

transparent aluminum?

Already there, already doing that. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corundum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparent_alumina

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