The Wall Street Journal reports that the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan have adversely hit the supply of a polymer produced from a resin known as polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF). The polymer holds together lithium-ion batteries that power Apple’s iPods and other mobile devices. Mariko Sanchanta, deputy bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal in [...]
James Rancourt of Polymer Solutions as Expert Witness
March 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment
In Polymer Solutions Incorporated’s March 2011 newsletter, founder and CEO James Rancourt describes what it’s like to serve as an expert in lawsuits. He talks about the many different facets that go into serving as an expert. For instance, by agreeing to testify in court, there is often the implicit assumption that Rancourt will be available around [...]
Self-Adjustable Eyeglasses Made Of Plastic and Polymer
March 29, 2011 By 1 Comment
What will it take to help a child in a poverty-stricken area to see the world more clearly? According to the U.K.-based Centre for Vision in the Developing World (CVDW), it takes some ingenious manipulation of plastics and polymers. In collaboration with Dow Corning, CVDW has designed cheap plastic glasses for which the wearer can adjust [...]
American Chemical Society Meeting Offers Polymers Galore
March 28, 2011 By 1 Comment
The 241st ACS National Meeting & Exposition started yesterday in Anaheim, CA, and will continue through Thursday, March 31. The American Chemical Society (ACS), one of the world’s largest scientific organizations with over 163,000 members, holds two meetings every year that cover the gamut of chemistry and its applications. The theme of the Spring 2011 meeting is “Chemistry of [...]
Heart Device Stretches to Multitask
March 25, 2011 By 1 Comment
Your money does a lot more if you know how to stretch it. The same logic also applies to cardiac medical devices. The team of John A. Rogers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign recently published a paper in Nature Materials that describes a new, stretchy balloon catheter for heart surgery. The catheter comes with all [...]
Plastic Deformation Caught In Action
March 24, 2011 By 4 Comments
Want new and improved plastics and polymers for all kinds of consumer and industrial products? Well, you first need to understand the weaknesses of current plastics and polymers and what causes them. To understand why soft polymers, like the kind that go into wire insulation, lose their integrity when exposed to high electrical currents, a research group [...]
Susan Freinkel’s Plastics Perspective: Use Them Wisely
March 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment
An op-ed piece in The New York Times by author Susan Freinkel puts a much-needed perspective on plastics. Plastics have been getting a bum rap these days, becoming synonymous with BPA-leaching baby bottles and bags choking up our waterways. Plastics do much good for society as well. Think of the disposable syringe the nurse uses for [...]
Polymer Solutions in Medical Product Outsourcing Magazine
March 22, 2011 By 1 Comment
Polymer Solutions Incorporated‘s founder and CEO, James Rancourt, is quoted in an article in the March issue of Medical Product Outsourcing (MPO) magazine. The feature article, “Materials by Nature“, is written by MPO managing editor Michael Barbella, who explores the lessons that scientists and engineers draw from nature to create new materials that will help to develop [...]
Clean Energy Storage with Nanoparticles and Polymers
March 21, 2011 By 1 Comment
There are some things The Container Store just doesn’t have a solution for and one of them is hydrogen storage. For years, scientists have been grappling with the problem of storing hydrogen, a clean energy source that promises to wean us off fossil fuels. But in a recent paper published in Nature Materials, Jeff Urban‘s inorganic [...]
Pepsi Goes for Plastic From Plants
March 18, 2011 By 2 Comments
PepsiCo revealed on Tuesday that it’s going to use a plastic made entirely of plant material for its bottles starting next year. The company claims the new plastic beats the technology of competitor The Coca-Cola Company, and reduces the carbon footprint of the bottles. According to an Associated Press report: The bottle is made from [...]
