polymers

2 Articles

As Light As Plastic; As Strong As Steel

February 7, 2022 by 38 Comments

Chemical engineers at MIT have pulled off something that was once thought impossible. By polymerizing material in two different directions at once, they have created a polymer that is very strong. You can read a pre-print version of the paper over on Arxiv.

Polymers owe many of their useful properties to the fact that they make long chains. Molecules known as monomers join together in strings held together by covalent bonds. Polymer chains may be cross-linked which changes its properties, but it has long been thought that material that had chains going through the X and Y axis would have desirable properties, but making these reliably is a challenge.

Part of the problem is that it is hard to line up molecules, even large monomers. If one monomer in the chain rotates a bit, it will create a defect in the 2D structure and that defect will grow rapidly as you add more monomers. The new technique is relatively easy to do and is irreversible which is good because reversible chains tend to have undesirable characteristics like low chemical stability. Synthesis does require a few chemicals like melamine, calcium chloride, pyridine, and trimesic acid. Along with N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone, the mixture eventually forms a gel. The team took pieces of gel and soaked it in ethanol. With some filtering, ultrasonics, centrifuging, and washing with water and acetone, the material was ready for vacuum drying and was made into a powder.

The powder is dissolved in acid and placed on a spinning silicon wafer to form a polymerized nanofilm. Other 2D films have been produced, of course, such as graphene, but polymer films may have a number of applications. In particular, in contrast to conventional polymers, sheets of this material are impermeable to gas and liquid, which could make it very useful as a coating.

According to the MIT press release, the film’s elastic modulus is about four and six times greater than that of bulletproof glass. The amount of force required to break the material is about twice that of steel. It doesn’t sound like this material will be oozing out of our 3D printers anytime soon. But maybe one day you’ll be able to get 2D super-strong resin.

For all their faults, conventional polymers changed the world as we know it. Some polymers occur naturally, and some use natural ingredients, too.

A Safer, Self-Healing Polymer Battery

January 15, 2020 by 4 Comments

Lithium-ion batteries are notorious for spontaneously combusting, with seemingly so many ways that it can be triggered. While they are a compact and relatively affordable rechargeable battery for hobbyists, damage to the batteries can be dangerous and lead to fires.

Several engineers from the University of Illinois have developed a solid polymer-based electrolyte that is able to self-heal after damage, preventing explosions.The material can also be recycled without the use of high temperatures or harsh chemical catalysts. The results of the study were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

As the batteries go through cycles of charge and discharge, they develop branch-like structures known as dendrites. These dendrites, composed of solid lithium, can cause electrical shorts and hotspots, growing large enough to puncture internal parts of the battery and causing explosive chemical reactions between the electrodes and electrolyte liquids. While engineers have been looking to replace liquid electrolytes in lithium-ion batteries with solid materials, many have been brittle and not highly conductive.

The high temperatures inside a battery melt most solid ion-conducting polymers, making them a less attractive option for non-liquid electrolytes. Further studies producing solid electrolytes from networks of cross-linked polymer strands delays the growth of dendrites but produces structures that are too complex to be recovered after damage. In response, the researchers at University of Illinois developed a similar network polymer electrolyte where the cross-link point undergoes exchange reactions and swaps out polymer strands. The polymers stiffen upon heating, minimizing the dendrite problem and more easily breaking down and resolidifying the electrolyte after damage.

Unlike conventional polymer electrolytes, the new polymer also shows properties of conductivity and stiffness increasing with heating. The material dissolves in water at room temperature, making it both energy-efficient and environmentally friendly as well.