Stronger than steel and lighter than plastic: American scientists have created a new material

MIT researchers have developed a new material that is as strong as steel but light as plastic. USAToday.

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According to Michael Strano, MIT's Carbon P. Dubbs professor of chemical engineering and senior researcher, the new material can be easily produced in large quantities, and use cases range from coatings for automobiles and telephones to building blocks for massive structures such as bridges.

“We don't usually think of plastic as something that can be used to support a building, but with this material you can do new things,” he said in an MIT statement. “It has very unusual properties, and we are very happy about it.”

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This material is several times stronger than bulletproof glass, and the force required to break it is twice that of steel, despite the fact that the material has only one-sixth the density of steel, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The researchers were able to do this by developing a new process for forming polymers. Plastics are an example of polymers, along with rubber and glass.

The researchers wanted to see if they could create a two-dimensional version of the polymer that could stay flat, making it lightweight. They've been trying to create that kind of material for decades. Details of the new process they developed were published last week in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

Polymers are chains of individual molecules, called monomers, connected to each other by chemical bonds. Usually, when polymers form, they turn into three-dimensional objects, similar to how a sheet cake rises when it is baked in an oven. The problem is that if even one monomer begins to rotate, the polymer becomes three-dimensional.

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For example, imagine that you want to line up the children holding hands in a chain and lead them into the classroom. However, if even one of the children decides to be naughty and fidget, it will be impossible to maintain order.

The key to success was the development of a process that allowed monomers to join and grow into a polymer chain without causing any of the monomers to displace. If you could build several XNUMXD polymers, you could layer them like discs and stack them together in a limited space, much like you could line up a chain of kids in a class if they're behaving well.

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