Polymers

Thermoset polymers, found in car parts and electrical appliances, have to be durable and heat-resistant, but typically cannot be easily recycled or broken down after use. MIT chemists have now developed a way to modify thermoset plastics that allows them to be more easily broken down without compromising their mechanical strength.

Chemists make tough plastics recyclable

New method for producing thermoset plastics allows them to be broken down more easily after use.

July 22, 2020

The co-beta peptide treatment is shown to eradicate biofilm bacteria such as MRSA, a particularly difficult form of bacteria to treat.

SMART and NTU researchers design polymer that can kill drug-resistant bacteria

Polymer may pave the way for drugs to which bacteria are significantly less resistant, a breakthrough that could save hundreds of thousands of lives per year.

December 20, 2019

Illustration shows the apparatus used to create a thin layer of a transparent, electrically conductive material, to protect solar cells or other devices. The chemicals used to produce the layer, shown in tubes at left, are introduced into a vacuum chamber where they deposit a layer on a substrate material at top of the chamber.

Clear, conductive coating could protect advanced solar cells, touch screens

New material should be relatively easy to produce at an industrial scale, researchers say.

November 22, 2019

A new type of polymer designed by MIT chemists incorporates a special monomer (yellow) that helps the polymers to break down more easily under certain conditions.

New synthesis method yields degradable polymers

Materials could be useful for delivering drugs or imaging agents in the body; may offer alternative to some industrial plastics.

October 28, 2019

In BigSMILES, polymeric fragments are represented by a list of repeating units enclosed by curly brackets. The chemical structures of the repeating units are encoded using normal SMILES syntax, but with additional bonding descriptors that specify how different repeating units are connected to form polymers. This simple design of syntax would enable the encoding of macromolecules over a wide range ...

Notation system allows scientists to communicate polymers more easily

BigSMILES language allows computers and researchers to convey stochastic configurations more clearly.

September 18, 2019

An instrument called a rheometer can measure mechanical properties of materials. The blue-colored gel on the stage of the instrument is the material. The rheometer is used to measure the modulus of the material, to gain an understanding of its stiffness and degree of dynamics.

Light-controlled polymers can switch between sturdy and soft

New material reversibly changes its structure in response to different wavelengths of light.

July 18, 2018

MIT chemists have now developed a 3-D printing technique that allows them to print objects and then go back and add new polymers that alter the materials’ chemical composition and mechanical properties. These new polymers can be reactivated by light.

Technique enables adaptable 3-D printing

Once fabricated, objects can be altered by adding new polymers.

January 13, 2017

MIT chemical engineers discovered that they could force antibodies and other proteins to form layers by attaching each protein to a polymer tail. The proteins and polymers repel each other, so the molecules arrange themselves in a structure that minimizes the interactions between the protein and polymer segments.

3-D antibody arrays offer better sensing

New tool could help diagnose malaria and other diseases.

January 4, 2017

Robert Macfarlane, the AMAX Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, holds vials of gold nanoparticles. Macfarlane designs nanoscale crystal structures whose assembly is activated by mutually attractive “sticky ends.”

Faculty highlight: Robert Macfarlane

MIT chemist constructs nanoparticle-based crystals by programming interactions of synthetic polymers and biopolymers at the molecular level.

October 14, 2016

Improving microparticle arrays for engineering applications: A new technique using tiny microwells pushes the precision and scalability of microparticle arrays to a new extreme. The assembly includes empty porous microwell arrays (top left) and unassembled microparticles (top middle). A close view of the microparticles in arrays appears at top right, and a wide view of the assembly appears below.

A better way to assay

New design of large-scale microparticle arrays can make materials science and bioengineering applications more scalable, precise, and versatile.

September 30, 2016

$Polymers, or long chains of repeating molecules, are found in many objects that we encounter every day, including anything made of plastic or rubber. In many materials, however, a significant fraction of these chains bind to themselves, forming defects.$

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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