New polymer developed by the United States can be used to coat metal parts of automobiles: as light as plastic, stronger than steel

According to foreign media reports, chemical engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have invented a new material that is stronger than steel and as light as plastic
.
The material is made by a novel polymerization process and is easy to achieve mass production
.
It can be used as a lightweight, durable coating for auto parts or mobile phones, or as a building material for bridges and other structures
.

Chemical engineers at MIT have invented a new material that is stronger than steel and yet as light as plastic
.

"We usually think of plastic as difficult to support buildings, but with this new material, you can create new things
.
It has unusual properties
.
" Michael Strano, MIT Carbon P.
Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering say
.

Unlike other polymers, the new material is two-dimensional and can self-assemble into sheets
.
Scientists had previously thought it was impossible to induce polymers to form 2D sheets
.
This is mainly because if only one monomer is rotated up or down, beyond the plane of the growing sheet, the material will start to expand in three dimensions and the sheet-like structure will be lost
.

Now, using a new polymerization process, researchers have developed two-dimensional sheets of this polyaramid
.
Its base sheets are stacked on top of each other and held together by hydrogen bonds, making the structure very stable and strong
.

"Instead of making a spaghetti-like molecule, we can make a sheet-like molecular plane, and we can have the molecules link themselves together in a two-dimensional plane," Strano continued
.
"This mechanism occurs spontaneously in solution, and after we synthesize the material, we can spin-coat very strong films with ease
.
"

Studies have shown that the new material is four and six times stronger than bulletproof glass
.
Its density is about one-sixth the density of steel
.
It's also not breathable, locking together like Lego blocks so that molecules don't get in the middle
.

"This means it can form ultra-thin coatings that are completely waterproof or gas-barrier and can be used to protect metal or steel structures in cars or other vehicles,
" Strano concludes
.