Nylon fishing line is stronger than steel and light as plastic.
...in tension.
MIT Engineers Create New Material Stronger Than Steel and Light as Plastic
21–30 of 70 posts
Re: MIT Engineers Create New Material Stronger Than Steel and Light as Plastic
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the article: >The new material is a two-dimensional polymer that self-assembles into sheets, unlike all other polymers, which form one-dimensional, spaghetti-like chains. Until now, scientists had believed it was impossible to induce polymers to form 2D sheets. ie: the existing polymers use 1D chains, not 3D.
The article also said that one of biggest challenges with making 2D polymer was keeping it 2D without it going 3D. But there was no explanation why that would be worse.
Normally the molecules can only assemble in a chain. They can make solids in three dimensions by being long and making a big tangled mess. It's like extruding dough into spaghetti, then stirring it around to make a big tangled ball. Instead, they found a way to roll the dough out into an arbitrarily large flat lasagna-like noodle. Then they stacked them and found they stick to each other well and could make a much stronger material than the spaghetti ball. The only real limit being the amount of dough and a space to roll it out on.
Re: MIT Engineers Create New Material Stronger Than Steel and Light as Plastic
#23This looks very interesting, in particular that it can be made gas-tight:
> "Another key feature of 2DPA-1 is that it is impermeable to gases. While other polymers are made from coiled chains with gaps that allow gases to seep through, the new material is made from monomers that lock together like LEGOs, and molecules cannot get between them."
However, this is yet another example of how excessive corporatization of academia can block the adoption and spread of new technologies created with taxpayer funds:
> "The research was funded by the Center for Enhanced Nanofluidic Transport (CENT) an Energy Frontier Research Center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, and the Army Research Laboratory."
> "The researchers have filed for two patents on the process they used to generate the material..."
So, who gets access to these patents? It should be the case that MIT be required to license these patents to any American citizen who is interested, non-exclusively, for free, as it was American taxpayers who financed this project.
Similarly, the actual paper is hidden behind a paywall at Nature, so independent researchers without an institutional affiliation have no access to the details without paying ridiculous fees; the paper wasn't uploaded to arxiv and isn't yet on sci-hub, and why not? So some publishers can extract fees for their decrepit business model?
Sci-hub_se does at least have copies of some of the references cited in the paper, if you search for this one you'll get the background (2009): "Two-Dimensional Polymers: Just a Dream of Synthetic Chemists?"
> "The fact that one can now isolate and investigate the natural 2D polymer graphene begs the question as to whether such intriguing structures could also be synthesized. [5] This question is not limited to whether one can synthesize graphene—this would be just one target of the entire family of 2D polymers, although admittedly an especially compli- cated and challenging one. It is meant much more general in the sense: Can one provide reliable and broadly applicable concepts to tackle the synthetic and analytical issues associ- ated with the creation of polymers which meet the structural characteristics of graphene (that is, one repeating unit thick, covalently bonded, and long-range order). Clearly, this would constitute a substantial advance for chemistry in particular, and the molecular sciences in general"
Re: MIT Engineers Create New Material Stronger Than Steel and Light as Plastic
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
The world should absolutely solve the micro plastics issue, but the world should absolutely not stop developing new plastics or finding new uses for plastics until that problem is solved. There should be more research into the impact of micro plastic particles. That doesn't mean we should stop research into new applications. These things can, and should, happen in parallel.
To add to your point. New R&D for plastics is probably where the solution to microplastics is going to come from. Some researcher building the next superplastic pauses to say "hey that's funny" and bam we've got a new formula that completely prevents the formation of microplastics. Artificially constraining development is a great way to either miss an important direction of research that will unknowingly solve our pr…
> Some researcher building the next superplastic pauses to say "hey that's funny" and bam we've got a new formula that completely prevents the formation of microplastics.
My understanding is that microplastics are a result of regular wear and tear, and I don't think a material exist that is immune to that. If anything, a new plastic formula may be created that hardens it enough to reduce the shedding to a negligible level.
Re: MIT Engineers Create New Material Stronger Than Steel and Light as Plastic
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
THIS ^^^. My concerns are less and less about preserving my phone and more and more about preserving my planet. Show me a phone that can be completely recycled instead of giving me the illusion that it won't break because of x or y. Eventually it's going to be to sluggish for modern applications (because of its cpu or because of its battery). I have a growing pile of now useless phones even at my house that I never b…
Personally I like the idea of modular phones such that you can swap out only components that are obsolete or damaged. Although, ultimately, this feels like a market/advertising issue over a technical issue. While I'm not convinced a 100% recycle phone will ever be a likelihood; surely we can get to 90%. Or slow down the trash generation with the aforementioned modular phone. However it's going to require people to wa…
How much does a modular design really extend the life of a computer? Very few people (my father aside) are actively trying to keep computers from the 90’s orearly 2000’s alive. That my 10-year-old MacBook is still kicking is kind of a miracle (and only because I have harvested the guts from two others).
Re: MIT Engineers Create New Material Stronger Than Steel and Light as Plastic
#26There is also the micro plastics issue to solve, before widening the scope of plastic applications.
THIS ^^^. My concerns are less and less about preserving my phone and more and more about preserving my planet. Show me a phone that can be completely recycled instead of giving me the illusion that it won't break because of x or y. Eventually it's going to be to sluggish for modern applications (because of its cpu or because of its battery). I have a growing pile of now useless phones even at my house that I never b…
>"I have a growing pile of now useless phones even at my house that I never broke because I take care of my investments."
pile of useless phones as an investment is some rather novel idea.
I also have few old ones but they're not useless, each is relegated to controlling particular gadget. Camera, drone, etc.
Re: MIT Engineers Create New Material Stronger Than Steel and Light as Plastic
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
To add to your point. New R&D for plastics is probably where the solution to microplastics is going to come from. Some researcher building the next superplastic pauses to say "hey that's funny" and bam we've got a new formula that completely prevents the formation of microplastics. Artificially constraining development is a great way to either miss an important direction of research that will unknowingly solve our pr…
> Some researcher building the next superplastic pauses to say "hey that's funny" and bam we've got a new formula that completely prevents the formation of microplastics. My understanding is that microplastics are a result of regular wear and tear, and I don't think a material exist that is immune to that. If anything, a new plastic formula may be created that hardens it enough to reduce the shedding to a negligible…
so your solution is to make the microplastics smaller?
Re: MIT Engineers Create New Material Stronger Than Steel and Light as Plastic
#28Was it clear to anyone in what way it's stronger than steel? The article mostly talks about applications where it's used as a coating. At the same time it says the sheets can be layered and create very strong bonds. Why can't I make the entire object out of this polymer? Is it hard to tear but not very rigid/too floppy? It sounded like it won't bust the bank either.
Re: MIT Engineers Create New Material Stronger Than Steel and Light as Plastic
#29This looks very interesting, in particular that it can be made gas-tight: > "Another key feature of 2DPA-1 is that it is impermeable to gases. While other polymers are made from coiled chains with gaps that allow gases to seep through, the new material is made from monomers that lock together like LEGOs, and molecules cannot get between them." However, this is yet another example of how excessive corporatization of a…
> for free, as it was American taxpayers who financed this project.
Just because something was financed by taxpayer money does not mean it should be free. It is definitely not a rule or how things work. Although I am curious what are the disadvantages of making it free, I bet there are some, even if lightweight.
Re: MIT Engineers Create New Material Stronger Than Steel and Light as Plastic
#30Sounds like transparent aluminum.
Ruby?