The 2018 World Cup kicked off! Here’s some of the chemistry you can look out for over the next month; polymers make up the ball and the shirts, and chemistry also has a part to play in the vanishing spray that referees will be using during the games.

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Carothers, Condensation Polymerisation, & Nylon

On this day in 1896, Wallace Carothers was born. Listed by C&EN magazine intheir recent list of scientists who should have won a Nobel prize, we have Carothers to thank for nylon, which can be used in clothing, carpets, car parts and more. Here’s a quick look at the chemistry behind the ...

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Last week the UK put its first polymer note into circulation, and it plans to replace all of its paper banknotes with polymer notes by 2020 (with the current exception of the £50 note). It’s far from the first country to introduce polymer notes, however; in fact, Australia has been using them ...

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Turning Carbon Dioxide into Useful Plastics

The graphic takes a look at the research ofEconic Technologies, a company which uses catalysts to incorporate captured waste carbon dioxide into polymers, which can themselves be incorporated into useful plastics.

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With the new season of the Premier League kicking offthis weekend, it seemed a good time to take a look at the chemicals that make up your average football shirt. Even if the start of a new football season isn’t the kind of event to fill you with excitement, it’s still intriguing from a ...

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A number of chemical materials are used in the manufacture of the Brazuca, the World Cup football. The majority of these materials are polymers; these are very long molecules built up from many smaller component molecules. A simple, everyday example is polyethene, used to make some plastic bags. ...

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Plastic is everywherein our day to day lives – but, of course, ‘plastic’ is just a catch-all term for a range of different chemical substances. This graphic takes a look at some of the more common plastics we encounter on a regular basis, and examines their chemical structures. Below, we’ll also ...

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For objects that essentially look like thin plastic films, there’s a surprising amount of chemistry behind contact lenses. This chemistry is designed to maximise comfort whilst they are being worn, and as such it’s also been constantly evolving and improving. Today’s post takes a look at some of ...

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Electric guitars, on the face of it, might not seem to have much to do with chemistry. However,the materials that make them up are carefully chosen for their chemical properties, without which they simply wouldn’t function. In this graphic, we take a look at some of these materials, and their ...

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This year’s European Championships are now well under way in France, and there’s already been some great football on show. It might surprise you to learn that some chemistry has also been taking centre-stage! TheEURO 2016ball is a triumph of materials science, and in this post we take a look at ...

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