Maths app helps manage polymer recipes

Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have made making a polymer recipe a more palatable job, thanks to a new app

The team has likened this to ‘baking a special cake, one in which the shape of each mote of spice mixed into the batter can have a profound effect on your dessert’s colour, its taste, its texture on the tongue’.

While polymers play a number of roles in daily life they lack many properties that would make them even more useful. A way around these limitations is to mix in other ingredients that have the right properties. Polymers conduct electricity poorly, for example, but adding carbon nanotubes (CNTs) or graphene sheets forms a strong, lightweight ‘nanocomposite’ whose electrical conductivity can be more than a million times higher.

Graphene has hit the headlines frequently over recent years. In the life science sector it is compatible with a range of biomedical applications such as drug delivery. It is thought that grapheme could play a significant role in the future of medical implants thanks to its biocompatibility and mechanical strength. This may prove beneficial for composite bio-materials and its electrical conductivity is being explored in this area. Work being carried out at the Michigan Technological University is looking at 3D printed nerve replacement nerves using 3D bioprinting methods. A polymer material has been created that can act as a scaffold for growing these tissues and graphene is being used to conduct electricity.