Polymer

With gold, beauty and weight are two sides of the same coin. Now, by mixing it with plastic instead of other metals, researchers have created a new form of gold with as little as one-10th the usual weight, but retaining the same purity.

In a quest for safer lithium-ion batteries, a team of engineers at the University of Illinois have come up with a solid polymer-based electrolyte that can not only heal itself but is recyclable without the need for high temperatures or strong acids.

While it's good that there are plastics which biodegrade, the glue used to join pieces of those or other materials together isn't as eco-friendly. Scientists have set about addressing that problem, however, by developing a biodegradable adhesive.

For a person with diabetes, monitoring blood glucose levels is an everyday hassle, usually involving finger pricks. A new prototype glucose monitor has been designed to power itself from that same glucose in bodily fluids.

Hokkaido University’s ongoing research into hydrogels has borne fresh fruit: a new polymer-based material that, unlike other polymers, hardens when heated – by 1,800 times.

Helmets could soon offer better protection while also being more comfortable, thanks to a new padding material developed by HRL Laboratories. It's claimed to be better than foam at withstanding impacts, while also keeping heads cooler and drier.

It can be difficult for people such as army medics, carrying an assortment of bandages in every shape and size. Thanks to recent research, however, they may one day simply be able to spray medication-laced fiber dressings directly onto wounds.

​While many of us might think that concrete structures such as bridges simply stand unaided for decades at a time, the fact is that they require maintenance as often as once every five years. An experimental new type of rebar, however, could drastically change that.

​While shape-memory materials do have some interesting applications, many of them require the application of heat in order to change shape – and that could cause problems, in environments such as the human body. A new material, however, relies instead on a magnetically-responsive liquid.

Researchers at Cambridge University have managed to create the smallest pixels in the world, about a million times tinier than those in a phone. These new pixels could be used in huge, flexible displays that are relatively easy to manufacture and cheaper to run.

​It's always helpful if materials let you know when they're under stress, so that changes can be made before catastrophic failures occur. A new polymer is designed to provide such a warning, as it glows when stretched.

Utilizing tape to repair concrete structures may seem like some hillbilly fix-it joke, but in fact that's just what fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) sheets are used for. Now, scientists have developed a better FRP, that halves the number of people and amount of time required for application.