According to New Atlas, plastic can be hard or soft, but can plastic have both characteristics at the same time? UTXAUSTIN scientists have been exploring this problem and producing a first-of-its-kind material that is flexible in some parts and hard in others, which they think one day will be used in flexible electronics and robots.
When developing this new type of material, scientists took inspiration from natural materials, which are rigid in some places and soft and elastic in others. Skin, muscle, trees and shellfish are several examples provided by the team, but creating synthetic versions of mixed strength and flexibility is difficult. Previous methods involved mixing different materials together, but this had its drawbacks, and the finished product tends to spread out at the joints.
Researchers claim that in this branch of materials science, a new type of plastic-like material has made breakthroughs. As a starting point, chemists used monomers, small molecules that gathered together to form polymers. In this case, polymers are very similar to those found in commonly used plastics, but with one or two special tricks.
After testing more than a dozen candidate materials, scientists discovered an catalyst , which can be integrated into monomers to react to visible light and pass it on with cheap blue LEDs. This produces the effect of creating a semi-crystalline polymer with properties similar to rubber, forming a hard material. At the same time, areas not exposed to light remain soft and elastic.
"This is the first of its kind," said Zachariah Page, assistant professor of chemistry and corresponding author of of the paper. "The ability to control crystallization by applying light and thus control the physical properties of the material can be a transformation for wearable electronic devices or actuators of software robots ."
researchers say that this plastic-like material has 10 times tougher than natural rubber, but has different physical properties in different regions. Scientists imagine their creations have a wide range of applications, including fixing wearable technology or electronic components in medical devices, as well as improving the strength and flexibility of robots. "We look forward to exploring the application of this chemical method to create 3D objects containing soft and hard components," said Adrian Rylski, first author of the
study. The study was published in the journal Science.
