New Class of Polymers Discovered By AccidentEco-friendly polymers strong enough to use in cars--

[eridani]

--and airplanes

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-class-of-polymers-discovered-by-accident/?WT.mc_id=SA_SA_20141118

When research chemist Jeannette García found a candy-size lump of white material in a flask she had recently used, she had no idea what she had created. The material stuck firmly to the glass, so she used a hammer to break it free. But when she turned the hammer on the material itself, it refused to crack. “When I realized just how high its strength was, I knew I needed to figure out what I'd made,” García says.

García, a scientist at IBM Research–Almaden, enlisted the help of several colleagues to solve the puzzle. They found that she had stumbled on a new family of thermoset polymers, exceptionally strong plas-tics that are used in products ranging from smartphones to airplane wings. Thermosets account for about one third of the global polymers produced every year, but they are difficult to recycle. García's new material, nicknamed Titan, is the first recyclable, industrial-strength thermoset ever discovered.

Unlike conventional thermosets, which pretty much refuse to be remolded, the new polymer can be reprocessed through a chemical reaction. García and her colleagues reported their discovery in May in Science.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Wow. Could be revolutionary.

[hunter]

2. The Scientific American clip was frustratingly vague...

Got this from Science News:

Using computations to understand the reaction that formed the polymer, García and colleagues realized that the chemistry is a simple revision of an old reaction. For years, chemists have known that combining nitrogen-containing molecules called amines with formaldehyde creates hexagon-shaped rings of carbon and nitrogen, called triazines. But by fortuitously adding a double amine — one that has two nitrogens — to the formaldehyde, García’s team created triazines that could link together into a three-dimensional network, forming a polymer with superpowers. The results appear in the May 16 Science.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/recyclable-superplastics-made-old-chemistry

Also that that the plastic breaks down in acid at pH 2.

Interesting stuff.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. From May ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/122829381

abstract: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6185/732.abstract Paywall for the full article.