Word: polymerized
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TURNING UP THE JUICE Tired of notebook batteries that fizzle after just a few hours? Electrofuel of Toronto electrofuel.com has developed the first 15-hr. backup battery. Called the PowerPad 160, it weighs only 2 lbs. and is just three-eighths of an inch. Made of a patented material, Lithium...
In truth, Bakelite--whose more chemically formal name is polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride--was just a harbinger of the age of plastics. Since Bakelite's heyday, researchers have churned out a polysyllabic catalog of plastics: polymethylmethacrylate (Plexiglas), polyesters, polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride (PVC, a.k.a. vinyl), polyhexamethylene adipamide (the original nylon polymer), polytetraperfluoroethylene (Teflon), polyurethane...
Which is one reason artificial-muscle researchers convened for the first time earlier this month at the International Symposium on Smart Structures and Materials in Newport Beach, Calif. "It's clear that if we're going to build little robots that do things, then they've got to have muscles...
That could change, because the mission to asteroid 4660 Nereus has thrust artificial muscles into the limelight. Whereas human limbs move by contracting and relaxing muscles, Bar-Cohen's artificial variety bends in response to electricity. Apply a charge to one side of a strip, and ions within the polymer...
Bar-Cohen foresees construction of artificial limbs that would allow a human to lift heavy objects the way an ant does. He has already received impassioned letters from disabled patients offering to test the first bionic limbs. But such equipment remains years from reality, because the polymer strips and gels...