Self-strengthening Material

Congratulations to Ashley, Zach, and collaborators!  Their article, “Mechanochemical Strengthening of a Synthetic Polymer in Response to Typically Destructive Shear Forces“, has been accepted for publication in Nature Chemistry.  In the paper, they show how mechanochemical coupling in bulk polymers and polymer solutions can take destructive mechanical forces and use them to trigger bond forming reactions that increase the modulus of the materials by 1-2 orders of magnitude.