Energy & Green Tech
Geothermal energy is an energy source of increasing importance. In the pursuit of energy efficiency to achieve set climate goals, it is important to get to understand the technical challenges in detail. The plastic pipes ...
Nov 5, 2020
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Energy & Green Tech
What if you could solve two of Earth's biggest problems in one stroke? UC Riverside engineers have developed a way to recycle plastic waste, such as soda or water bottles, into a nanomaterial useful for energy storage.
Aug 12, 2020
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367
Energy & Green Tech
Researchers in the BOTTLE Consortium, including from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the University of Portsmouth, have identified using enzymes as a more sustainable ...
Jul 20, 2021
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937
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 ...
Machine learning & AI
A joint research team led by Xu Bo from the Institute of Automation and Mu-Ming Poo from the Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, have discovered that self-backpropagation, ...
Oct 22, 2021
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328
Robotics
Japanese grocery chain FamilyMart has teamed up with Tokyo startup Telexistence to test the idea of using a remotely controlled shelf stocking robot named the Model-T to restock grocery shelves. On its website, Telexistence ...
Engineering
In the 3D marketplace, would a small, lightweight 3D printing pen, enabling doodling in the air with precision, really take off? Here's an indication: a Kickstarter project offering a 3D pen that is small, light and able ...
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 ...
Machine learning & AI
What if doctors had more time to spend addressing their patients' concerns? That's the thrust behind the push for integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into medicine. By using complex algorithms to detect patterns in large ...
Jun 26, 2020
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Engineering
For years, unrecycled plastic bottles have been dumped in landfills. Now, thanks to new research from UBC Okanagan, those bottles may have a second life in that landfill—stabilizing its earth walls.
Jul 20, 2023
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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
