Posted on 02/08/2022 12:52:22 PM PST by Red Badger
Why is plastic bad for the environment? It is one of those seemingly necessary evils: It’s as lightweight as it is durable, and it’s in pretty much everything. Plus, unlike other popular materials (think steel and glass), it doesn’t cost very much money or energy to produce. That said, there’s a reason why coffee shops are puncturing their lids with paper straws, and grocery stores are piling up produce within the confines of paper bags: Plastic is bad for everyone who touches it. Because it’s a synthetic material made by humans, plastic’s ingredient list comprises quite a few chemicals—some of which can be toxic—that make it nearly impossible to break down. Luckily, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working on a new plastic that boasts all of the benefits and none of the disadvantages of the age-old version, which is quickly approaching its demise. It’s called 2DPA-1, and it’s two times stronger than steel and capable of conducting electricity and blocking gas. Regular plastic can’t do any of that.
Michael Strano, a chemical engineering professor at MIT and the lead author on the research paper recently published in Nature, used a bowl of spaghetti to explain how 2DPA-1 works in layman’s terms. The more noodles you pile into the bowl, the harder it will be to see its bottom. The sauce, however, can always find the bottom because the noodles—no matter how many there are—create little pockets of space between them, giving the sauce a route to the bottom of the bowl. In plastic’s case, the noodles are polymers that feature the same spaghetti-like pockets between them, but instead of sauce, it’s gas passing through them. Strano said that’s why you can still smell your leftovers no matter how tightly you seal your plastic baggie.
Like regular plastic, 2DPA-1 also has polymers, but they’re nothing like noodles. Instead, they’re one-dimensional discs that lay flat and link together by way of an unbreakable hydrogen bond. In other words, 2DPA-1 is really strong in a way that regular plastic isn’t. And it has a lot of practical uses depending on how it’s manufactured. For instance, the already strong sheets can be layered on top of one another, creating a legitimately unbreakable plastic. They can also be rolled into tubes and mixed with other plastics to make a two-in-one barrier that functions like armor, which got scientists thinking: What if we use this as a coating for anything donning a layer or two of paint, like a car? No matter what type of paint is used, cars’ surfaces eventually fall victim to the elements and begin to rust or rot. But with a layer of 2DPA-1 on top, they can last a lot longer because no gasses can break its super-strong seal. Applying 2DPA-1 as a protective jacket is only one of many highly practical uses for the newly developed plastic, already being licensed by private companies.
Plastic has played a big role in design for decades. Midcentury-modern icons Charles and Ray Eames were met with massive success when they unveiled the Molded Fiberglass chairs in 1950, but the negative environmental costs associated with fiberglass forced the duo to discontinue their beloved design. Luckily, in 2001, Herman Miller reintroduced the Molded Plastic chair in polypropylene, which is recyclable.
An even more impactful use would be construction. After all, plastic is bad for the environment, and erecting skyscrapers with unsustainable materials doesn’t help. It would be a waste not to enlist the lightweight, easy-to-make substance that’s twice as strong as steel for more permanent uses like buildings in major cities. If anything, the buildings would last seemingly forever while reducing the carbon footprint, which everyone in cities experiencing climate change–related disasters would gladly appreciate.
Though 2DPA-1 is very much still in its infancy, it poses a big impact on the environment because better plastic means less plastic, which is always a good thing for living beings on land, in the sky, and below sea level.
Maybe it can replace the &*^%^&$#! Carbon-Fiber in bicycle frames!
I’m sure the DemoMarxist despots will find a way to ban it.
fiber glass is really bad for the environment. It is silicon dioxide, which is the dangerous chemical making up 99% of beach sand. We need to get that out of our environment now. All of it.
Stronger than steel but will the sun’s ultraviolet rays ultimately weaken and degrade it? Enquiring minds would want to know.
That scene from The Graduate has turned out to be damn good advice.
Sure did!
Better have Scottie from the Enterprise check this substance out to determine if it is better than transparent aluminum.
It’ll be banned here, then some Chinese spy will get their meat hooks on it. They probably already have.
Is the energy-cost to produce within economically practical limits.
Many grand inventions turn out to be impractical when manufacturing costs get considered.
If electricity was just now discovered it would be banned.
“Maybe it can replace the &*^%^&$#! Carbon-Fiber in bicycle frames!”
What’s the concern?
Fireproof? UV stable? Stable thru temperature cycles? let me know when
Fiberglass
Fiberglass is made of exactly what it sounds like: glass fibers. Glass is made into extremely thin strands. These are then woven together to make fiberglass cloth or pressed in a random pattern to make other types of fiberglass mats.
Fiberglass is considered an irritant because the little bits and microscopic pieces of glass threads can get into the skin or lungs, cutting and irritating them. It is essential to use protective gear when working with fiberglass. Fiberglass is still glass, but it is light and flexible when mixed with a resin. When the resin cures, the fiberglass inside gives it strength.
Polyester Resin
Resins come in many forms, and one of those is polyester. This is a different type of polyester than the one clothing is made from. Polyester resin is a polymer, which means the material’s molecules are complex and often formed from the evaporation of water from the other chemicals in it. These chemicals are dicarboxylic acids and difunctional alcohols in polyester. Polyester resin is also unsaturated, which means it has an additional chemical in it that was not used in the reaction between the dicorboxylic acid and the difunctional alcohol. The catalyst to make these chemicals harden from a viscous liquid resin into a solid form are chemicals called reactive monomers, most often styrene. Reactive monomers are simply low-weight molecules that react with other chemicals to make polymers.
Epoxy Resin
Epoxy resins can be made with many different materials. The word “epoxy” comes from “epoxide,” a chemical made of oxygen molecules combined with other molecules. The oxygen is added to molecules, often carbon, that are already bonded, creating a ring or chain of molecules. Epoxy resins tend to cure longer but stronger than polyester resins. The catalyst for epoxy resins is a hardener, often made from anhydride or amine chemicals. The amount of hardener changes the cure times and strength of the completed resin.
Other Resins
There are other resin types available for industrial use. Polyurethane is a familiar type of paint for many people, but it can also be used in resin. It is a polymer that engineers can use to create almost any desired affect. Vinyl ester resin is intended as an improvement to epoxy, creating a faster cure time and better workability. An epoxy is made with acrylic alcohol and dissolved in styrene to create the vinyl ester resin, and organic peroxides are used as a catalyst. Because these and other resins are used only in industry, the average person will encounter polyester resins as the most common fiberglass resins.
My understanding it works really well until it breaks unexpectedly.
I’m still waiting for real transparent aluminum, not the ALON fake transparent aluminum stuff. LOL
“My understanding it works really well until it breaks unexpectedly.”
The carbon fiber splitter on my car has survived several clashes with parking lot bumpers that would have destroyed fiberglass.
I don’t know who put this airheaded bint on the materials science beat, but I really wish they hadn’t. Her awful and barely literate writing as if there was only one type of plastic until this stuff came along, and repeated high-school activist panic that all plastic is bad for the environment makes the story more about her ignorance than the technological development that she’s barely able to report on, even while parroting the dumbed down explanations the actual engineers and scientists provided to her.
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