94. Impossible 2D Material Created, MRIs Added to the Cancer Fight, Game Changing Carbon Capture Technology

NEWS: <p><a href='https://newatlas.com/materials/2d-material-light-plastic-stronger-steel/'>"Impossible" 2D material is light as plastic and stronger than steel</a> | New Atlas (01:53)</p> <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Engineers at MIT have developed a new ultrathin material that’s as light as plastic but stronger than steel. </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Polymers are versatile materials, of which plastics are perhaps the most well known examples.<ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Under a microscope, polymers usually look like squiggly threads</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Can be coaxed into three dimensional shapes through manufacturing methods</li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">However, getting polymers to bind together to form 2D sheets has been surprisingly difficult. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Some teams have success, but the material loses strength or other desirable properties</li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">MIT scientists say they’ve developed a new production method that allows polymers to form 2D sheets while keeping their strength intact.<ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Started with a monomer (one-dimensional chains)</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Placed in a solution exposed to the right conditions</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Molecules then grow sideways into disk shapes</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Then they stack on top of each other with hydrogen bonds holding the layers together.</li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Michael Strano, senior author of the study, talks on the process: <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">“Instead of making a spaghetti-like molecule, we can make a sheet-like molecular plane, where we get molecules to hook themselves together in two dimensions … This mechanism happens spontaneously in solution, and after we synthesize the material, we can easily spin-coat thin films that are extraordinarily strong.”</li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">The new material that came about, the team called 2DP