Just a spoonful of a new material synthesized by researchers from the University of Southern Denmark is enough to suck up all the oxygen in an entire room.
Sound like a sci-fi super-villain's nefarious weapon, but the substance is actually a form of crystalline cobalt salt. It can suck up huge amounts of oxygen and, even more interestingly, release it again without any quality loss multiple, possibly even limitless, times.
The material that look like grains of pink salt turn black when they are saturated with oxygen. They can keep the oxygen in stores until it is gently heated, at which point, it will release the gas back into the atmosphere.
The crystalline cobalt works similarly to how hemoglobin in red blood cells attach to oxygen in order to deliver it through the veins to various parts of the body.
The lattice-like structure is the key characteristic of the material that allows it to detect and suck up oxygen like a sponge. But when heat or pressure is applied to it, just like a sponge being squeezed dry, the oxygen is released from the lattice structure of the cobalt and is replaced by nitrogen.
Possible applications of the amazing new material range from medical equipment to deep sea scuba diving, or possibly even one day introducing oxygen onto submarines, airplanes, or spaceships that are losing oxygen, or even onto planets that do not have breathable air. Just a few small grains of the substance contains enough oxygen for one breath.
