News Materials Science

Droplets string themselves together

By Jessica Gorman

When designing products such as car bumpers, engineers often call for polymers that mix as poorly as vinegar and oil. Materials scientists can circumvent this problem by blending the ingredients so that one polymer forms droplets that disperse in the other.

In a polymer blend between two quartz disks, tiny droplets of one polymer (top) coalesce into strings (bottom) as the upper disk’s rotation slows. Microscope lens below the disks provides a view. Migler/NIST

New research has revealed that in very small spaces, these blends can yield unexpectedly well-organized microstructures that might prove useful for making such novel items as all-plastic electrical wires. In the Feb.