The first utility of this man-made wondering material is staggering. Plastic can be made lite and delicate as sandwich nylon, or very tough like police shield, even this shield is just 4 mm. thick it can easily resist any attack. This is not surprising when you consider that makers test them with impacts from fire access and even from shoot gun pullets. Also, everyday plastics like the one used in traffic cones can be extremely resilient.
Plastic is extremely chemical resistant. Using of concentrated Hydrochloric acid (( can corrode a piece of tin in one minute )) on cone made of low density poly ethylene plastic for five minutes cause no damage for it !!
So What is the Science beyond Plastic ??
It's man-made synthetic resin which can be made by many different recipes depending on properties you're looking for, its main ingredient is generally oil or gas.One of the first plastic found at normal home was celluloid which was invented in the middle of 19th century and was commonly used as replacement for much more expensive materials such as Ivory. But the most famous use was for camera film, I wonder how hollywood would be without celluloid! But it did had one major drawback: one of the key ingredients of celluloid is nitrate which made it very very flammable.
Because of this, very few things today are made from celluloid but it's still used to make ping-bong balls, and yes .. if you applied a flame, it do burn.
Another early plastic which was a little less hazards was Bakelite, it was invented in 1907 and it has many of the properties that we now associate with modern plastics. It can be formed into almost any shape, it's resistant to chemicals and it's relatively durable, although compared to modern plastics it is very brittle.
Having said that, Bakelite was used in some of the very early electric guitars which makes it pretty cool in my book ;) ;)
To Be Continue >>
