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A research chemist at IBM Research has accidentally discovered a new type of synthetic polymer. This is being hailed as the first distinctly new family that has been discovered in several decades.

Jeannette M Garcia was following a simple formula that required mixing three components in a beaker. Mistakenly missing a step, leaving out a chemical, she found her beaker filled with a hard white plastic that had even frozen the stirrer.

Grinding and breaking the material did not work and has led to the discovery of a new family of materials that are unusually strong and light, exhibit “self-healing” properties and can be easily reformed to make products recyclable.

These new materials are the first to demonstrate resistance to cracking, strength higher than bone, the ability to reform to their original shape (self-heal), all while being completely recyclable back to their starting material. Also, these materials can be transformed into new polymer structures to further bolster their strength by 50% making them ultra strong and lightweight. This research has been published in the peer-reviewed journal, Science, with collaborators including UC Berkeley, Eindhoven University of Technology and King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia.

Polymers are an indispensable part of everyday life. However, today’s polymer materials are limited in some ways eg, poor stress crack resistance. Polymers are also difficult to recycle because they cannot be remoulded or reworked once cured or thermally decomposed by heating to high temperatures. As a result, these end up in the landfill together with toxins such as plasticizers, fillers, and colour additives which are not biodegradable.

IBM’s discovery of a new family of materials with a range of tunable and desirable properties provides a new opportunity for exploratory research and applications development to academia, materials manufacturers and end users of high performance materials. Two new related classes of materials have been discovered which possess a very distinctive range of properties that include high stiffness, solvent resistance, the ability to heal themselves once a crack is introduced and to be used as a resin for filled composite materials to further bolster their strength.

“Although there has been significant work in high-performance materials, today’s engineered polymers still lack several fundamental attributes. New materials innovation is critical to addressing major global challenges, developing new products and emerging disruptive technologies,” said James Hedrick, advanced organic materials scientist, IBM Research. “We’re now able to predict how molecules will respond to chemical reactions and build new polymer structures with significant guidance from computation that facilitates accelerated materials discovery. This is unique to IBM and allows us to address the complex needs of advanced materials for applications in transportation, microelectronic or advanced manufacturing.”