T-Shirts That Stop Bullets

Researchers have drastically increased the toughness of a T-shirt by combining the carbon in the shirt’s cotton with boron – the third hardest material on earth. The result is a lightweight shirt reinforced with boron carbide, the same material used to protect tanks. Scientists dipped plain, white T-shirts that were cut into thin strips into a boron solution. The strips were later removed from the solution and heated in an oven. The heat changed the cotton fibers into carbon fibers, which reacted with the boron solution and produced boron carbide. read more

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