New material demonstrates record breaking properties

The magnesium carbonate material, dubbed Upsalite, is expected to reduce the amount of energy needed to control environmental moisture in the electronics and drug formulation industry as well as in hockey rinks and warehouses. It can also be used for collection of toxic waste, chemicals or oil spill and in drug delivery systems, for odour control and sanitation after fire.

‘In contrast to what has been claimed for more than 100 years in the scientific literature, we have found that amorphous magnesium carbonate can be made in a very simple, low-temperature process,’ said Johan Goméz de la Torre, a researcher from the Nanotechnology and Functional Materials division at Uppsala.

While ordered forms of magnesium carbonate, both with and without water in the structure, are abundant in nature, water-free disordered forms have been proven extremely difficult to make. In 1908, German researchers claimed that the material could not be made in the same way as other disordered carbonates, namely by bubbling CO2 through an alcoholic suspension. Subsequent studies in 1926 and 1961 came to the same conclusion.