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Sara Davidovic

8a

Science Class- Mrs. M

A Material can Remember!

Author: Anonymous

Source: http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20100331/Note1.asp

Date of Article written: March 31, 2010

A very unpopular material called Nafion is one of the most used materials in the world. We have been using this material from the ‘60’s. A chemist named DuPont was the founder of this very useful material. This material uses fuel cells. A fuel cell is a cell producing an electric current directly from a chemical reaction. These fuel cells are often used to power up satellites and produce energy for hydrogen. But now in Michigan they have recently discovered the real quality of Niforn. Nifron can supposedly imitate three different shapes. For example if you twist this Nifon material into a oval shape, later on it will remember this and make the same shape that you have shaped it into before. Nifon can’t be tested anywhere, its memorization all depends on the temperature of the place it has been bended, twisted, etc. This material is called what the synthetic polymer and this material cannot be found in nature, this is a man-made material that is made up of different molecules that connect . The molecules contained in this synthetic polymer are found in various weights and sizes. A scientist named Tao Xie has reported that Nafion is a scientific version of Silly Putty. Now, you might ask yourself how has this proven to be valid. Well, as I said the scientist named Tao Xie has reported that this was another scientific version of silly putty, not quite. Xie had tested his hypothesis. The first step he had made to his new discovery was that he heated this material to 140 degrees Celsius. Once the material was heated he made a shape out of it, cooled it off, then did the same thing two more times, but with different shapes. He let it cool of after changing the shape three times .Then he finally decided to test it again, he  heated it back to 140 degrees Celsius and noticed that the material Nafion  changed back to all three shapes slowly. It combined the three shapes together and created a new shape. This brings us to the fact of exploring, and discovering new shapes. What if maybe one day we discover that the shapes we think are impossible to create are easy to make with Nafion? Maybe one day we will actually  create a Penrose triangle! Overall nafion is not the only material that is capable of remembering the shapes it was formed into, but it is one of the latest ones.

Reflection:

This is a very important material we have discovered. It’s funny though, how this material is over 40 years old and we have only discovered its use in the year of 2010. This year has definitely been a successful year for scientists and architects. As we make new foundries and we improve our technology we are capable of discovering new things. This can take us to the top and we might get to our goals that we probably never thought we would be able to accomplish. Now that we have found a material like Nafion, we can discover new shapes, make impossible objects possible, and maybe even come to the discovery of its possible daily use. Maybe this material can be used in our daily lives. Foundries like these can lead to new discoveries! 

 

^^^^The molecules this Nafion is made up of!