Plastics have reigned our surroundings for more than a century now. From pens, slippers,drinking water bottles, cups, mugs, plates,toys to high end mobiles and aircraft components..They are light, inexpensive and can be moulded in more than a million ways. However they were not known to conduct electricity till date. As advancement grows by leaps and bounds these plastics are to act in an opposite manner as insulator.
Intense research has offered flexible, energy saving alternatives that could revolutionise industrial economics.A German research institute has devised a hybrid solution in a composite material that causes the cost effective plastic to conduct electricity and also is resilient like metals.And also it does not require any machinery to develop the components.
The new avatar of plastic can replace conventional plastic in automobile and aircraft manufacturing to a great extent.The headlamps housings on a car can be made more efficient and cost effective by the new conductive hybrid. Aircraft fuselage are partly made of Carbon fibre components that do not conduct electricity and a lightning stroke can have fatal consequences.A plastic metal hybrid coating would act as a safe discharge structure on such components. It will no longer be necessary to integrate metal circuit boards and the components will soon be able to be produced in a single work step,leading to reduction in product cost and the weight of the material will also be reduced drastically. Only time Will test the impact of the new hybrid plastic on our lives!
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The Author is a II yr college student and member of the Hansraj College Website Team of DevelopmentChannel.org
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