'Gluing' soft materials without glue

If you're a fan of arts and crafts, you're likely familiar with the messy, sticky, frustration-inducing nature of liquid glues. But researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces now have a brand-new way to weld ...

Toward a safer material for artificial muscles

Whether wriggling your toes or lifting groceries, muscles in your body smoothly expand and contract. Some polymers can do the same thing—acting like artificial muscles—but only when stimulated by dangerously high voltages. ...

Can synthetic polymers replace the body's natural proteins?

Most life on Earth is based on polymers of 20 amino acids that have evolved into hundreds of thousands of different, highly specialized proteins. They catalyze reactions, form backbone and muscle and even generate movement.

Modeling superfast processes in organic solar cell material

In organic solar cells, carbon-based polymers convert light into charges that are passed to an acceptor. This type of material has great potential, but to unlock this, a better understanding is needed of the way in which ...

'Magic' solvent creates stronger thin films

A new all-dry polymerization technique uses reactive vapors to create thin films with enhanced properties, such as mechanical strength, kinetics and morphology. The synthesis process is gentler on the environment than traditional ...

Researchers develop strain sensors for health, machine use

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a stretchable strain sensor that has an unprecedented combination of sensitivity and range, allowing it to detect even minor changes in strain with greater range ...

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