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 ...

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 ...

Boron based polymers

22-Jan-2018 - Plastic bags from polyethylene, packaging from polystyrene, frying pans with Teflon coatings: everyday life is awash with polymers. Chemically, polymers are long, chain-like molecules with backbones based almost exclusively on carbon (and sometimes silicon) atoms. Other types of polymers are ...

A perfect team for nanoelectronics

Polymer-coated silicon nanosheets as alternative to graphene

09-Mar-2017 - Silicon nanosheets are thin, two-dimensional layers with exceptional optoelectronic properties very similar to those of graphene. Albeit, the nanosheets are less stable. Now researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have, for the first time ever, produced a composite material ...