A UNIVERSAL TRIBUTE TO POLYMERS:
MY PROJECTED DREAM
“Can you draw me a
macromolecule?”
said
the Petit Prince of all dreamers
Why then a tribute to polymers after this strong accusation?
Understanding synthetic polymer properties has not been easy:
ask someone to tell you about the fights of Staudinger, Flory or de Gennes, our
only 3 Nobel laureates, to convince their peers; and it is still a big challenge. I should know since I
advocate in blogs, papers, lectures and books the challenges to the existing
models.
I am really convinced that we have not used the correct theoretical
background to understand the properties of polymers: their flow
characteristics, their visco-elasticity, their thermal properties and their fundamental
transitions. As I will explain, the road to redemption for polymers and
plastics involves a fresh new look at the background concepts (the statistics
of their interactions). This new look may lead to a better understanding of
materials in general, of the interactions between atomic or molecular objects
in particular, and, well, of physics in general, you know, the relationship
between space, time and matter.
There was a good reason for not using the correct theoretical
background to explain polymer physics: it still needed to be invented!
The new statistical approach of interactions (the
Grain-Field Statistics), which I have formulated may fit the job (I am working nonstop
at proving it by applying the model to various aspects of polymeric behavior:
linear and non-linear visco-elasticity, crystallization from the melt,
relaxation behavior etc.). Yet, this new statistics needs to be widely exposed, explained, debated, diffused, improved, modified and only then may it
serve as a source of new ideas in theoretical physics.
Polymer physics, the physics of macromolecules,
understandably followed the tracks of the physics of small molecules, using the
same statistical mechanical concepts tweaked for the macromolecular size. This
led to the elaboration of the molecular dynamic models that we know of by
Rouse, de Gennes, Doi and Edwards, and their improvements by many other brilliant
scientists, too many to be quoted here.
Are these praised models correctly describing reality or
not? That is the only question that
matters in science, a question that differentiates this discipline from art and
philosophy. What I have been claiming for the last 8 years (see the previous 33 blogs) is that the molecular dynamic models of polymer physics are not good
enough, hence they should be abandoned! If you take the time and carefully
conduct your own investigation, being thorough while keeping an open mind, you
will probably agree with me: a new interpretation of the behavior of polymers is
inevitable.
We need a new statistical formulation of the interactions in
macromolecular physics that could be shown to explain their physical behavior,
in the liquid, solid and the rubbery states. Do I mean a new
statistics that applies to the particular case of interacting macromolecules, say
the way we understand small molecules from the Boltzmann’s statistics? Yes,
indeed, something like the Boltzmann’s statistics, yet rewritten to describe the
case of covalently bonded mers forming a collective system of interactions. In essence,
this is the statistics of interactions itself which is re-invented because of
the macromolecular aspect; it is not derived nor adapted from the statistics of the small
molecules.
You probably know of the Fable of Jean de la Fontaine
“Perrette et le pot à lait (Perrete and the milk jug)” where she starts to
dream of what she could do with the money of the fresh milk she is carrying on
her head to the market to sell it, spilling it while dreaming and not paying
attention, and loosing it all. Well, I am still milking the cow (polymer
physics), and paying attention, so there is no spill or limited spill possible,
but I dream. I dream of the possible implications of this new physics of
interactions to other fields than polymers, I dream of testing this statistical
model using other particles in interactions. In fact, I dream that a general theory
of interactions that was first invented to describe polymer science could be
retrofitted to small molecules, to particles, to the propagation of light, to a
new understanding of the Maxwell’s equations, to a dual-split understanding of
time and space and a cross-dual split understanding of time-space and matter.
The
paternity to a new birth of things would be polymers, even more specifically “synthetic
polymers”: their road to redemption, no doubt!
But, of course, on this Martin Luther King’s day, it was
just a dream!
Let’s use our new knowledge and imagination to clean up the planet first:
A visionary approach
to plastic recycling to save the oceans: plastic-battery-storage powders
(PBS).
A recent program on
Arte.tv “Plastic Everywhere! Histories of
Wastes”, broadcasted on April 3rd 2018, alerts on the impact of
plastics on the environment, especially in polluting oceans and disturbing the
life of fishes, whales etc. Plastics should not become waste just after been
used. All plastics which have entanglements, thus all used and virgin plastics
created by the industry, everywhere in the world, should be viewed as a new
resource, not waste that pollute the environment. The plastic industry has a mission to
clean-up the mess created by the short life of their product, and this
visionary technology could be part of the solution.
The current established
understanding of polymer physics is holding back new innovation in the plastic
industry. All the properties that make polymers useful materials are due to
their ability to flow in molds and be mechanically strong: this is entirely due
to the interactions between the macromolecules, in particular to their
entanglement. The current understanding of entanglement is flawed: it is based
on the description of the properties of a single chain embedded in a sea of
average interaction from the other chains that disturbs its properties, for
instance its ability to deform to adapt to a stress field. The statistics is
treated from a pure macromolecular perspective, like in the case of rubber
extensibility. The macromolecules are, indeed, absolutely essential to
determine the properties of polymers, in particular why they entangle, but, in
our view, the current established paradigm to understand flow and be able to
innovate is based on the wrong definition of the statistical system defining
the interactions, thus the wrong model of viscosity. This is the reason the
current theories struggle explaining non-linear viscoelasticity which concerns
the flow of melts at high rate of production, practiced in the industry, and
why they cannot understand “sustained orientation” (aka “disentanglement), a
new property I have observed which has been validated by others. In fact, the
challenge to understand sustained-orientation has triggered my theoretical new developments
leading to the Grain-Field Statistics and its potential application-derived by
simulation- to manufacture “plastic-battery storage” new materials out of
recycled plastics.
The enthalpy increase of
compressed air is well known, it is directly proportional to the pressure
increase. So air is a vehicle for storing enthalpic energy. But one needs the
resistance of the tank walls to keep the volume constant to maintain the
enthalpy into its non-equilibrium state. A full tank of compressed air is like
a battery, in that sense, whose return to equilibrium upon decompression can drive
rotating electromagnets into producing electrical current. Plastics have an entanglement network that
can be manipulated to become the tank walls in order to store energy. The
energy to be stored must be applied in such a way as to modify the enthalpy of
the interactive units, and, simultaneously, collectively organize the network
of the interactions to undergo sustained-orientation. In operating this way,
the plastic does not return instantaneously, elastically, to its equilibrium
state, hence the release of the stored energy can be controlled, creating a
battery effect.
The treated melt that has
created a new network of entanglement under sustained-orientation condition, is
quickly cooled and transformed into a fine powder. This is the same process
that was used to freeze the sustained-orientation of disentangled network into
micro-pellets, making them hold their non-equilibrium state at room
temperature. At this stage, the powder is stable at room temperature and can be
stored in bags, like normal powders, for very long times, because of the
infinitely slow kinetics of relaxation at room temperature. This powder is the
potential battery material (“clean fuel”) to produce energy by thermal
activation. The powder can be poured
into the throat of an extruder and heated there above a certain temperature,
the temperature of activation, which corresponds to the start of the instability
of the sustained-oriented boosted re-entangled network. The release of the
enthalpy stored in the bonds occurs as the system returns to its thermodynamic
entanglement network state. This stage, like for a compressed gas which is
decompressed, will enable the turning of helicoidally grooved shafts, pushing
forward the molten plastic which is disentangling as it processes through. The
rotation of the shaft can activate electromagnets and create a current, acting
like a battery with no chemical release.
In the vision’s future
achievements, depending on the amount of pressure which can be stored in the
bonds of a sustained oriented boosted network (~3000 bars for polyethylene is
expected), the battery-energy storage-powder can be poured in a recipient (like
the fuel tank in a car) and can continuously feed the throat of a mechanical
shaft which turns the wheels of a vehicle. This “clean-fuel” does not release
any chemicals during its consumption, does not pollute the atmosphere, and can
be re-used many times as long as the exiting plastic recovered has not
significantly degraded and has enough chain length above the critical molecular
weight for entanglement.
In other words, in this
practical visionary application of the Grain-Field Statistics model of the
interactions in synthetic polymers, plastic is used to store energy into its
bonds, captured in the form of a powder that can be packaged in barrels,
shipped etc, and this plastic-clean-fuel can be activated thermally, locally,
with the proper equipment to restore the energy, feeding mechanical drives to
produce motion or electricity.
In another possible option
to prime the process into releasing energy, the temperature of the onset of
instability is reached by sun light heating, say 55 oC for a polymer
tested (LLDPE), by beaming sun energy on the throat area of the extruder screw.
Thus the clean fuel-powder can be manufactured and bagged where and when the
energy is abundant and cheap, for instance at night, or where it is intermittent,
near solar plants and wind turbines. Then those bags can be used anywhere to
produce electricity, in particular at other locations where power plants could
be set up only requiring sun light to drive the production of electricity
locally (in deserts in many places of the globe).
Another road to redemption
for plastics?
We live a critical moment in the history of human beings
which has recently seen the uncontrolled explosion of its population. Our G7 model
of societal organization over the last 100 years, driven by an addictive
passion for enrichment, has resulted in the unlimited exploitation of the global
resources of the planet, in turn endangering the survival of our own structures
and perhaps the destiny of the humanity. The unlimited demands for more energy,
so easily met by the fuel industry, has precipitated the acceleration of the
means to pollute, which has slowly impacted our environment, almost invisibly
until recently, now with drastic and catastrophic consequences to come.
The plastic industry is a byproduct of the fuel industry:
plastics are derived from petrol. We need the plastic industry to act now. It
is possible to turn a waste into an added value new resource.
The Petit Prince
of all Dreamers is watching how we will clean out our planet; let’s not turn
our dreams into nightmares!.
Jean Pierre Ibar
January 21st,
2019
Post#34
