Pluripotent Polymers

When developing plastics, people have historically worked to make them optimal for a specific single use, such as for manufacturing sturdy chairs, or a more flexible form for food packaging. But what if a single plastic could be tempered to be useful in either form? We’ll explore plastic manufacturing in the U.S. National Science Foundation’s “Discovery Files”.
In the biological world, stem cells are called pluripotent because they can change from one type of cell into another but in the world of polymers, materials have been made to exhibit specific properties.
NSF-Supported scientists at the University of Chicago, have created new plastic materials whose properties can be changed on demand.
These new materials can be made soft for one application or rigid for another after heat tempering treatments, even in different regions of the same object.
These dynamic polymers would allow for objects to be built or repaired from a single source. From rubber band like material to a flexible sheet or a stiff molded device.
These possibilities would be valuable for use in locations with limited resources such as future missions to the Moon or Mars and open the door to different approaches to plastic recycling.
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