Do you remember melamine? It’s the infamous “milk powder additive”, but surprisingly, it may be “transformed”.

On February 2, a research paper was published in Nature, the leading international scientific journal, claiming that melamine can be made into a material that is harder than steel and lighter than plastic, much to people’s surprise. The paper was published by a team led by renowned materials scientist Michael Strano, a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the first author was postdoctoral fellow Yuwei Zeng.

They reportedly named the material invented from melamine 2DPA-1, a two-dimensional polymer that self-assembles into sheets to form a less dense yet extremely strong, high-quality material, for which two patents have been filed.

Melamine, commonly known as dimethylamine, is a white monoclinic crystal that looks similar to milk p

Melamine is tasteless and slightly soluble in water, but also in methanol, formaldehyde, acetic acid, glycerin, pyridine, etc. It is insoluble in acetone and ether. It is harmful to human body, and both China and WHO have specified that melamine should not be used in food processing or food additives, but in fact melamine is still very important as chemical raw material and construction raw material, especially in paints, lacquers, plates, adhesives and other products have a lot of applications.

The molecular formula of melamine is C3H6N6 and the molecular weight is 126.12. Through its chemical formula, we can know that melamine contains three elements, carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen, and contains the structure of carbon and nitrogen rings, and scientists at MIT found in their experiments that these melamine molecules monomers can grow on two dimensions under proper conditions, and the hydrogen bonds in the molecules will be fixed together, making it in constant The hydrogen bonds in the molecules will be fixed together, making it form a disc shape in constant stacking, just like the hexagonal structure formed by two-dimensional graphene, and this structure is very stable and strong, so melamine is transformed into a high-quality two-dimensional sheet called polyamide in the hands of scientists.

The material is also uncomplicated to manufacture, Strano said, and can be produced spontaneously in solution, from which the 2DPA-1 film can later be removed, providing an easy way to make the extremely tough yet thin material in large quantities.

The researchers found that the new material has a modulus of elasticity, a measure of the force required to deform, that is four to six times greater than that of bulletproof glass. They also found that despite being one-sixth as dense as steel, the polymer has twice the yield strength, or the force required to break the material.

Another key property of the material is its airtightness. While other polymers consist of twisted chains with gaps where gas can escape, the new material consists of monomers that stick together like Lego blocks and molecules can’t get between them.

This allows us to create ultra-thin coatings that are completely resistant to water or gas penetration,” the scientists said. This type of barrier coating could be used to protect metals in cars and other vehicles or steel structures.”

Now the researchers are studying how this particular polymer can be formed into two-dimensional sheets in more detail and are trying to change its molecular composition to create other types of new materials.

It’s clear that this material is highly desirable, and if it can be mass-produced, it could bring major changes to the automotive, aerospace, and ballistic protection fields. Especially in the field of new energy vehicles, although many countries plan to phase out fuel vehicles after 2035, but the current new energy vehicle range is still a problem. If this new material can be used in the field of automotive, it means that the weight of new energy vehicles will be greatly reduced, but also to reduce power loss, which will indirectly improve the range of new energy vehicles.