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Scientists Develop New Hybrid Foam for Construction

A worker constructing a new home. Photo: REUTERS
A worker constructing a new home. Photo: REUTERS
    Cologne, Germany- Majed Al-Khatib
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Scientists Develop New Hybrid Foam for Construction

A worker constructing a new home. Photo: REUTERS
A worker constructing a new home. Photo: REUTERS

Scientists at the German Fraunhofer Institute managed to build a 100% wooden foam that can replace traditional wood in manufacturing, but this time they have developed a hybrid foam of wood and metal that beat old materials with its durability and weightlessness.

Scientists say that such foam can enter the world of industry and construction from its widest door, thanks to its durability and low production costs. It can also be used as a middle layer in a "sandwich" of semiconductor materials in the microelectronic industry. 

Many of Fraunhofer's Institutes, including The Wood Research Institute, The New Materials Production Institute and The Institute for Applied Materials and Research, participated in the production of the new foamy material which has the features of both metal and wood.

Dr. Frauke Bunzel from Fraunhofer Mother Institute (which involves 70 specialized institutes), said that the new foam is non-foldable, which makes it better than most metals and qualifies it to be used between two layers of metal to provide it with an anti-bending property. 

The new material is also suitable for construction because of its durability, light weight and ability to absorb noise, along with a complete thermal isolation without being affected by heat and fire. And because of its acoustic insulation, the new foam can be used to build engines and vehicles to reduce noise, or to build sound barriers on highways. 

The same properties allow the new material to be used in the cladding of facades and ceilings of houses as well, to provide them with the ability to curb noise and resist atmosphere fluctuations. 

It was not easy to mix the wooden foam with metal, Bunzel said. Scientists initially tried to compress the foam by force into the pores of rigid metal foam, but this led the bubbles to enter the metal pores and the wooden fiber to outflow. In a second step, the scientists successfully combined the foam by using the "hammering" technique.

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Animals Found Living Underground Near Deep-sea Hydrothermal Vents

Giant tubeworms on the seafloor surface at 2,500 meters water depth at the East Pacific Rise, a volcanically active ridge located where two tectonic plates meet on the floor of the Pacific Ocean in this undated photograph.CC BY-NC-SA Schmidt Ocean Institute/Handout via REUTERS
Giant tubeworms on the seafloor surface at 2,500 meters water depth at the East Pacific Rise, a volcanically active ridge located where two tectonic plates meet on the floor of the Pacific Ocean in this undated photograph.CC BY-NC-SA Schmidt Ocean Institute/Handout via REUTERS
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Animals Found Living Underground Near Deep-sea Hydrothermal Vents

Giant tubeworms on the seafloor surface at 2,500 meters water depth at the East Pacific Rise, a volcanically active ridge located where two tectonic plates meet on the floor of the Pacific Ocean in this undated photograph.CC BY-NC-SA Schmidt Ocean Institute/Handout via REUTERS
Giant tubeworms on the seafloor surface at 2,500 meters water depth at the East Pacific Rise, a volcanically active ridge located where two tectonic plates meet on the floor of the Pacific Ocean in this undated photograph.CC BY-NC-SA Schmidt Ocean Institute/Handout via REUTERS

A deep-diving robot that chiseled into the rocky Pacific seabed at a spot where two of the immense plates comprising Earth's outer shell meet has unearthed a previously unknown realm of animal life thriving underground near hydrothermal vents.

Giant tubeworms - the world's heftiest worms - and other marine invertebrates such as snails and bristle worms were found using the remotely operated underwater vehicle SuBastian. They were living inside cavities within the Earth's crust at an ocean-floor site where the Pacific is 1.56 miles (2,515 meters) deep. All the species were previously known to have lived near such vents, but never underground, Reuters reported.

"We discovered vent animal life in the cavities of the ocean's crust. We now know that the unique hydrothermal vent ecosystem extends into the ocean's crust," said marine biologist Sabine Gollner of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, one of the leaders of the study published this week in the journal Nature Communications.

"To our knowledge, it is the first time that animal life has been discovered in the ocean crust," Gollner added.

The exploration was conducted at the East Pacific Rise, a volcanically active ridge on the floor of the southeastern Pacific, running approximately parallel to South America's west coast. Earth's rigid outer part is divided into colossal plates that move gradually over time in a process called plate tectonics. The East Pacific Rise is located where two such plates are gradually spreading apart.

This area contains many hydrothermal vents, fissures in the seafloor situated where seawater and magma beneath the Earth's crust come together. Magma refers to molten rock that is underground, while lava refers to molten rock that reaches the surface, including the seafloor. New seafloor forms in places where magma is forced upward toward the surface at a mid-ocean ridge and cools to form volcanic rock.

The hydrothermal vents spew into the cold sea the super-heated and chemical-rich water that nourishes microorganisms.

"The warm venting fluids are rich in energy - for example, sulfide - that can be used by microbes, which form the basis of the food-chain," Gollner said.

Life flourishes around the vents - including giant tubeworms reaching lengths of 10 feet (3 meters), mussels, crabs, shrimp, fish and other organisms beautifully adapted to this extreme environment. The giant tubeworms do not eat as other animals do. Instead, bacteria residing in their body in a sack-like organ turn sulfur from the water into energy for the animal.

The researchers deployed SuBastian from the Schmidt Ocean Institute research vessel Falkortoo to the vent site deep below. The robot was equipped with arms that wielded a chisel that the researchers used to dig into the crust and uncover warm and fluid-filled cavities where the tubeworms, bristle worms and snails were spotted.

"We used a chisel to break the rock. We dug about 20 cm (8 inches). The lava plates were about 10 cm (4 inches) thick. The cavities below the lava plates were about 10 cm in height," Gollner said.

Larvae from these animals may invade these subseafloor habitats, the researchers said, in an example of connectivity between the seafloor and underground ecosystems.

"It changed our view on connectedness in the ocean," Gollner said of discovering the subsurface lair.