Forever materials - Another nerdy journey with the MOA podcast

Podcast

Jan 9

A product lasting a lifetime is great, right? As a marketing headline, it sounds good, but when we dive into "forever materials," we learn that reality is more complicated. Join us for the second episode of our podcast to learn about the greatness of polymers and the issues they highlight in our society. As usual, Oliver, our Head of Research and Innovation, and Barnabas, our Brand and Marketing Manager, go on a nerdy journey to uncover some interesting facts.

After discovering the history of polymers, we go on with our journey in the world of polymers: What makes them so great, and what makes them so problematic?

Geckos and happy pans - The story behind Teflon

To highlight what is so amazing about polymers, we start with a material called Teflon. Like so often with science, a happy accident led to the groundbreaking discovery of this polymer. Teflon's unique properties were first utilized in the Manhattan Project. Later, it became a standard in most kitchens under the "Tefal" and "Happy Pan" brands. But this polymer is much more than just utensils. Teflon (and other polymers) is great because it can be used for many other things, like creating waterproof textiles, lubricants, and surgical mesh. It's also the only known material that geckos can't stick to. Unluckily, with time, it turned out that this story is not all about happiness.

Forever materials - Stuff we can't get rid of

What makes Teflon and other forever materials so great is also what makes them problematic. They're so resistant to decay that they virtually never break down. And the same is true for another chemical used to manufacture Teflon, often called C8. The problem is that this material and other "nasty cocktails" were released into nature. So, we have materials that never break down and have potentially worrying health effects. Different, maybe less harmful polymers also take hundreds of years to break down, polluting our environment in many ways.

We have to be smarter with our materials

There are plenty of things we're trying to do to solve these issues. Recycling polymers and creating biodegradable materials are two things we hear the most about. Currently, however, all these proposed solutions have serious problems. Recycling is very complicated, and its implementation needs to catch up. Depending on source, only 5-9% of plastics waste is recycled due to several difficulties with the processes used. As a comparison, aluminum's recycling rate is more than 70%, according to studies. Biodegradability also raises a lot of questions. To find out the issues and what we can do about them as a society, listen to the second episode of the Carbon Lab!