A team of experts led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed a lightweight and extremely powerful material: it is as light as plastic but stronger than steel itself and could soon be used to protect the screens of our smartphones.
The material achieves polymerization in two dimensions, something that, until now, was thought to be “impossible”. Polymers are familiar to us, especially thanks to plastics, as it is probably the best known example.
Under a microscope, polymers look like wavy threads, one-dimensional chains of units called monomers, but they can take on three-dimensional shapes through manufacturing methods like injection molding. But what about forming 2D sheets? This challenge has been really complicated, according to experts. Indeed, in the past, attempts have produced materials with flaws that reduced their strength and thus their purpose.
The experts used a compound called melamine, which is made up of carbon and nitrogen rings, and is commonly used to make plastic tableware. They found that, under the right conditions, melamine monomers can be used to grow small two-dimensional disks that stack on top of each other and, by hydrogen bonding each layer together, make it extremely strong and stable.
Applications
This material could be used as a coating for car and mobile parts or even as a construction material for bridges and other structures thanks to its self-assembly capacity.
“We don’t normally think of plastics as something you could use to hold up a building, but with this material, you can enable new things. It has very unusual properties and we’re very excited about it,” says Michael Strano, Carbon P. Dubbs at MIT and lead author of the new study in the journal Nature.
The MIT researchers have filed two patents on the process to create their new material.
Referencia: More information: Michael Strano, Irreversible synthesis of an ultrastrong two-dimensional polymeric material, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04296-3. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04296-3
