This New Liquid Metal Can Stretch To All Directions Without Breaking Apart

Dhir Acharya - Mar 21, 2019

The way it stretches is the same as the fictional robot T-1000 the Terminator 2. The new liquid metal can stretch up to four times of its original length.

If you are familiar with the film Terminator, you certainly know how the robotic killer that can turn into liquid metal and easily escape from the prison.

The good news is, scientists have figured out the way to create such material capable of stretching in every direction, both vertically and horizontally, like a sci-fi effect in real life. But no worries, we are nowhere near the creation of a Terminator robot.

On Wednesday, a video was released by the American Chemical Society illustrating the action of this metal. The video was to comply with a publication in a journal called Applied Materials & Interfaces.

As can be seen in the video, we can manipulate the metal using magnets. The way it stretches is the same as the fictional robot T-1000 the Terminator 2. The metal is capable of stretching up to four times of its original length.

More importantly, we can use this metal to complete a full circuit by connecting two electrodes, which lights up an LED bulb. While most liquid metals turn into paste when exposed in the air, this new metal remains fluid.

Chinese scientists from Beihang University led the project.

As reported by the ACS, to create this metal, the researchers added iron particles into a droplet of tin, indium, and gallium alloy which was immersed in HCl (hydrochloric acid). Then, on the surface of the droplet, there will be a layer of gallium oxide formed, which lowers the tension on the surface of this liquid metal. Thanks to this, the metal can stretch out as well as move without breaking apart.

Although we are still too far to have a morphing phone, the research team believes that this type of liquid metal can be used in soft robotics one day.