Plastics

In the 1940s industrial chemists started synthesizing giant molecules called polymers to make strong, light materials called plastics. In the past 50 years, they have had a string of successes:

Much of the Boeing 757 airplane is made of lightweight plastic. Neutron studies may lead to safer, faster, more energy-efficient aircraft.

• Tougher, lighter materials used in cars and airplanes (e.g., the Boeing 757 jet)
• Bulletproof vests to protect police officers
• Synthetic threads for textiles

The annual U.S. consumption of polymers exceeds 70 billion pounds, so these materials are the subject of intense scientific and commercial interest.

Neutron scattering will help scientists determine the best polymer blends to make high-quality plastic products.

Because of difficulties in commercializing new polymers, industry has turned increasingly to combining (blending) existing polymers to optimize the mixture's end-use properties. Such materials account for approximately one quarter of the polymer market; this segment is growing at twice the rate of industrial plastics as a whole. Neutron scattering is the premier technique for investigating such blends.

At SNS, such experiments can be performed in seconds, not minutes or hours. This allows researchers to quickly determine how well polymers will mix, how long they should be ground and compressed, at which temperature they should be melted together to get the best mixing, and which mixtures will form the best products. For example, to help the recycling industry, SNS can help scientists understand which polymers can be melted down and mixed to form useful polymer blends. Currently, less than 10% of polymers are recycled, so determining the degree of compatibility of different components can help in designing strategies for reprocessing and in evaluating the usefulness of the resulting material.