Ashland completes second expansion of bioresorbable polymers manufacturing and R&D lab in Ireland

Planned ribbon cutting event demonstrates company commitment to investment in innovation platforms and local presence

15-Aug-2024 - Ashland has completed the second expansion of its pharmaceutical injectables manufacturing and R&D lab at the National Science Park in Mullingar, Ireland and will celebrate the moment with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on August 22, 2024. This enhancement, completed as scheduled, significantly ...

Plant-inspired polymers for water purification

German-Japanese research team takes inspiration from nature, creating a polymer that selectively removes toxic heavy metal ions from water

31-Jul-2024 - Clean drinking water is a basic demand for our health and wellbeing. However, as the global population grows, achieving this for all communities worldwide becomes more challenging. Now, in a study published in Nature Communications, researchers from the HeKKSaGOn Alliance – involved were ...

Researchers discover an alternative to PEG

rPEG as a new type of Poly(ethylene glycol): random chains offer multiple advantages for medical application

28-Jun-2024 - Researchers have discovered a highly promising replacement for polyethylene glycols (or PEGs), which are considered almost indispensable in the pharmaceutical and medical fields. The new substance class called rPEG offers all the advantages of PEGs, while avoiding their drawbacks and has the ...

Decisive breakthrough for battery production: Foundations for sustainable battery technology developed

Storing and utilising energy with innovative sulphur-based cathodes

26-Apr-2024 - Electric vehicles and portable electronic devices such as laptops and mobile phones are unthinkable without lithium-ion batteries. The problem: highly toxic materials such as cobalt are often used for the cathodes of these batteries, which jeopardise the environment and the health of people in ...

Diapers reloaded: 200 times faster recycling with light - Recycled plastic molecules can be used in many ways

Water and UV radiation dissolve crosslinked polymers of diaper inserts quickly, energy-efficiently and without chemicals

05-Oct-2023 - More than 100,000 tons of disposable diapers are thrown away in Germany every year. This means that huge quantities of valuable raw materials end up in the trash, including the absorbent pads. Their core consists of special polymers called superabsorbents. Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute ...

Multicyclic molecular wheels with polymer potential

Molecules that act as connected wheels can hold long molecular chains together to modify the properties of soft polymers

08-Aug-2023 - Rotaxanes are interlocked molecular structures with a linear ‘axle’ molecule penetrating one or more cyclic ‘wheel’ molecules. Bulky groups at the end of the axle prevent the wheels from coming off. Now, researchers at Hokkaido University have taken the previous achievements of this technology a ...

Intelligent rubber materials

The vision: materials that respond to active triggers

19-Jul-2023 - Wearable medical devices, such as the soft exoskeletons that provide support for stroke patients or controlled drug delivery patches, have to be made of materials that can adapt intelligently and autonomously to the wearer's movements and to changing environmental conditions. These are precisely ...

Chemists develop method to sustainably remove hazardous substances from water

New progress in the fight against PFAS

27-Jun-2023 - PFAS - per- and polyfluorinated chemicals - are true all-rounders. The grease-, water- and dirt-repellent chemicals occur in thousands of varieties, for example in cookware, functional clothing, cosmetics and as fire extinguishing agents. Unfortunately, they are also a massive problem for the ...

HZB and University of Jena found Helmholtz Institute for Polymers in Energy Applications

Developing internationally competitive energy materials

22-Jun-2023 - Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (Helmholtz Centre for Materials and Energy, HZB) are jointly founding the "Helmholtz Institute for Polymers in Energy Applications" (HIPOLE) on 1 July 2023. The aim of HIPOLE is to develop sustainable polymer materials for energy ...

Chemists redesign biological PHAs, ‘dream’ biodegradable plastics

17-Apr-2023 - They’ve been called “dream” plastics: polyhydroxyalkanoates, or PHAs. Already the basis of afledgling industry, they’re a class of polymers naturally created by living microorganisms, or synthetically produced from biorenewable feedstocks. They’re biodegradable in the ambient environment, ...