A new method allows chemists to precisely place single monomers at any position within a polymer chain made of other types of monomers. With this single monomer, chemists can add various types of ...

Precise control over the location of monomers in a polymer chain has been described as the ‘Holy Grail’ of polymer synthesis. Controlled chain growth polymerization techniques have brought this goal ...

Figure 1: Rotor-shaped anthracene monomer 1 and the anthracene dimerization that enables 2DP growth. Figure 2: Crystal structures of monomer and polymer crystals. Within each layer the molecules of ...

One hundred years ago, in 1920, the German chemist Hermann Staudinger published his classic paper entitled "Über Polymerisation" ("On Polymerization"). In that paper, he proposed a chain structure for ...

Several hindrances to the recycling of synthetic polymers, including material separation and post-treatment degradation of the macromolecular polymer chains, negatively affect the cost-efficiency and ...

Researchers took a middling monomer and, by using a special catalyst, they created a tougher polymer that can form long chains. The polymer can then be easily depolymerized back to the monomer state ...

Researchers have created a high-performance polymer that can be chemically recycled without compromising its heat and chemical resistance. The revolutionary design includes a directing group that ...

Developing a practical polymer that can break down to its monomer and then be repolymerized over and over again has been a long-standing goal of plastics makers and recycling advocates. Such a ...

Plastics, by and large, are well-understood materials. Not as strong as most metals, but often much lighter, these man-made polymers have found innumerable applications that have revolutionized the ...

Light as plastic, stronger than steel, and more difficult to deform than bulletproof glass. “We don’t usually think of plastics as being something that you could use to support a building,” says MIT ...