{"id":171460,"date":"2025-12-02T18:35:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T18:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/171460\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T18:35:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T18:35:15","slug":"chemistry-in-pictures-predicting-a-polymer-palette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/171460\/","title":{"rendered":"Chemistry in Pictures: Predicting a polymer palette"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article-content\">Structural color, which comes from light waves interacting with matter on the nanoscale, is found in many places in nature\u2014bird feathers, insect shells, <a href=\"https:\/\/cen.acs.org\/materials\/coatings\/its-wax-blue-fruits-get-their-hue-from-their-coating-crystalline-structure\/102\/web\/2024\/02\" shape=\"rect\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">even some plants<\/a>. But chemists have also devised lots of <a href=\"https:\/\/cen.acs.org\/materials\/3-d-printing\/Printable-polymer-tunable-structural-color\/102\/web\/2024\/02\" shape=\"rect\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">clever ways to manufacture materials<\/a> with structural color. Block copolymers that self-assemble into nanoscale layers are a good way to generate structural color because researchers can fine-tune the materials\u2019 overall optical properties, says Ming Xiao of Sichuan University. Xiao and his team published a physics-based model that can determine <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41467-025-66015-0\" shape=\"rect\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">what polymer architecture will create a given color<\/a> (Nat. Commun. 2025, DOI: 10.1038\/s41467-025-66015-0).<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-content\">The researchers based the model on block copolymers composed of polydimethylsiloxane and either poly(ethylene glycol) or polycaprolactone, and demonstrated the polymers\u2019 colorful capabilities by printing patterned films to make images such as this butterfly. They also found that changing the temperature changed the crystallinity of the soft polydimethylsiloxane layers, leading to chameleon-like shifts in hue. \u201cWe didn\u2019t expect this color change,\u201d Xiao says, but once they discovered it, they quickly figured out how to intentionally design for it. Xiao says that his team\u2019s next steps are to continue refining the polymers\u2019 tunable color-changing properties and start developing the materials for applications such as anticounterfeiting.<\/p>\n<p>              <img data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/chempic--color-changing-polymer---261144\"  alt=\"An image of a chameleon printed using a color-changing polymer.\" class=\"w-100\" decoding=\"async\"\/><br \/>\n              An image of a chameleon printed using a color-changing polymer.<\/p>\n<p>            Credit:<br \/>\n              Dong Yang\/Nat. Commun.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-content\">Credit: Dong Yang<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-content\">Do science. Take pictures. Win money.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/cen.acs.org\/collections\/chemistry-in-pictures\/submit-your-photo.html\" shape=\"rect\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Enter our photo contest<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-content\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cen.acs.org\/collections\/chemistry-in-pictures.html\" shape=\"rect\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">See more Chemistry in Pictures<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>        <a href=\"https:\/\/cen.acs.org\/staffDirectory\/Brianna-Barbu.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025-bri.jpg\" alt=\"Brianna Barbu\" class=\"img-fluid\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n        Chemical &amp; Engineering News<\/p>\n<p>          ISSN 0009-2347<\/p>\n<p>          Copyright \u00a9<br \/>\n            2025 American Chemical Society<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Structural color, which comes from light waves interacting with matter on the nanoscale, is found in many places&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1836,94715,94717,94713,61,60,252,52405,51987,82,94714,94716],"class_list":["post-171460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-3d-printing","tag-bottlebrush-block-copolymer","tag-color-changing","tag-computational-chemistry","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-materials","tag-physical-chemistry","tag-polymers","tag-science","tag-structureal-color","tag-thermochromism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}