stackyFACTSNatural rubber heavily degrades and turns to slush the moment it touches raw petroleum. By heavily polymerizing chloroprene, chemists spawned a resilient synthetic elastomer that maintains its extreme flexibility across wild temperature swings and stubbornly rejects the destructive chemical degradation caused by greases and oils.
Keep exploring facts in this topic.
Technology →STACKY FOR IPHONEKeep discovering with Stacky. Interesting facts in an app that is always within reach.
Creating ultra-lightweight supercar materials requires roasting standard plastic threads in a total vacuum so they do not instantly combust. By slowly heating…
Discover more
Washing windows is apparently too tedious for modern chemistry, so we made glass that cleans itself using ultraviolet radiation. When titanium dioxide…
Discover more
Bulletproof vests owe their existence to an impending gas shortage. Stephanie Kwolek was searching for a strong, lightweight fiber to replace steel in radial…
Discover more
Standard concrete relies on roasting limestone, but geopolymers prefer a more synthetic approach. By mixing industrial byproducts like fly ash with heavily…
Discover more
Humanity somehow figured out a way to sell packaged air and call it a structural material. By violently expanding polystyrene beads with blowing agents, we…
Discover more
Cross-linked polymers are chemically desperate for water. Superabsorbent hydrogels are composed of sprawling molecular chains lined with sodium molecules.…
Discover more