Energy & Green Tech
Ash spewed by a Philippine volcano is being mixed with plastic waste to make bricks in an inventive response to the country's persistent problems of pollution and frequent natural disasters.
Jan 18, 2020
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27
Hi Tech & Innovation
With many of the products we use every day held together by adhesives, researchers from UBC's Okanagan campus and the University of Victoria hope to make everything from protective clothing to medical implants and residential ...
Dec 4, 2019
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8
Robotics
Idea hatchers at the Moonshot Factory, Alphabet X, have been busy on an Everyday Robot project and its goal is quite simple. They are keen on "building a robot that can learn to operate in many different situations."
Business
Airbus nailed down $30 billion in new plane orders on the second day of the Dubai Airshow after previous rounds of the biennial showcase saw its competitor Boeing take the lion's share of deals.
Nov 18, 2019
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3
Energy & Green Tech
Laura Parker in National Geographic last year: Scientists have tried to get a handle on the amount of plastic that ends up in the seas and harm to birds, marine animals, and fish. .Billions of tons of plastic have been made ...
Engineering
The 60th Maintenance Squadron is the first field unit in the U.S. Air Force to be certified with an industrial-sized, 3-D printer that is authorized to produce nonstructural aircraft parts.
Aug 21, 2019
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13
Engineering
Artificial limbs made out of plastic water bottles could save healthcare providers millions of pounds and help tackle pollution at the same time.
Aug 19, 2019
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6
Energy & Green Tech
Plans are underway in Appalachia to create two underground facilities to store ethane, a byproduct of natural gas drilling seen as integral to revitalizing a region still struggling from the loss of industrial and manufacturing ...
Apr 29, 2019
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43
Engineering
Kayak paddles, snowshoes, skateboards. Outdoor sporting goods used to be a tough market for 3-D printing to break into, but fused particle fabrication (FPF) can change that.
Apr 9, 2019
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1
Machine learning & AI
The human brain continuously changes over time, forming new synaptic connections based on experiences and information learned over a lifetime. Over the past few years, artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers have been trying ...
Plastic is the general common term for a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic organic amorphous solid materials suitable for the manufacture of industrial products. Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular weight, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce costs.
The word derives from the Greek πλαστικός (plastikos) meaning fit for molding, and πλαστός (plastos) meaning molded. It refers to their malleability, or plasticity during manufacture, that allows them to be cast, pressed, or extruded into an enormous variety of shapes—such as films, fibers, plates, tubes, bottles, boxes, and much more.
The common word plastic should not be confused with the technical adjective plastic, which is applied to any material which undergoes a permanent change of shape (plastic deformation) when strained beyond a certain point. Aluminum, for instance, is plastic in this sense, but not a plastic in the common sense; while some plastics, in their finished forms, will break before deforming and therefore are not plastic in the technical sense.
There are two types of plastics: thermoplastics and thermosets. Thermoplastics, if exposed to enough heat, will melt. Thermosets will keep their shape until they are charred and burnt. Some examples of thermoplastics are grocery bags, piano keys and some automobile parts. Examples of thermosets are children's dinner sets and circuit boards.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
