Thermoset polymers underpin many high-performance applications because covalent cross-linking yields stability, chemical resistance, and robust mechanics.

To upcycle the polymers of discarded plastics, chemists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory invented a way to generate new macromolecules with more valuable properties than those of the starting material ...

Artistic rendering of the new plastic. Cross linked salt bridges visible in the plastic outside the seawater give it its structure and strength. In seawater (and in soil, not depicted), resalting ...

Most polymers don’t mix—and that’s the point. Polymer alloys succeed by engineering the interface: use thermodynamics to predict separation, processing to sculpt morphology, and compatibilizers to ...