БЛОГ

Oct 24, 2022

Scientists develop “smart plastic” that changes its form from soft to hard in sunlight

Posted by in categories: materials, robotics/AI

Researchers say they were inspired by living things from trees to shellfish.

They were inspired by living things, from trees to shellfish. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin set their collective advanced minds on creating a plastic that would mimic real life. It would be like many life forms that are soft and stretchy in some places and hard and rigid in others.

Their success, a first ever, using only light and a catalyst to change the properties such as hardness and elasticity in molecules of the same type. The resulting material is ten times stronger than natural rubber and could very well change flexibility of electronics and robotics.


Plastic stretch.

The findings were published recently in the journal Science.

Leave a reply