A new material developed by chemical engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is reportedly stronger than steel but as lightweight as plastic.

The MIT team developed the two dimensional (2D), self-assembling sheets called polyaramide via a novel patent-pending polymerization process.

According to the researchers, sheets of the polyaramide stack on top of each other and are held together by hydrogen bonds. The result is material that is reportedly four and six times stronger than bulletproof glass, and with a density that is roughly one-sixth that of steel. Likewise, the material is locked together in such a way so that it is impermeable to gases.

Source: MIT

“Instead of making a spaghetti-like molecule, we can make a sheet-like molecular plane, where we get molecules to hook themselves together in two dimensions,” explained the researchers. “This mechanism happens spontaneously in solution, and after we synthesize the material, we can easily spin-coat thin films that are extraordinarily strong.”

The MIT team envisions that the material could be used as ultra-thin barrier coatings for protecting car parts, cell phones or building material for bridges and other structures.

The article, Irreversible synthesis of an ultrastrong two-dimensional polymeric material, appears in the journal Nature.