You're looking at one of the most widely used materials on the planet, although you may not recognize it.
This almost alien-like landscape is a 1750x magnified view of a polyurethane, a polymer used in everything from mattresses and trainers to airport seats. Like any polymer, polyurethanes are made up of repetitive individual units. If you change these building blocks you can vary the properties of the final product: from liquid, through flexible foam, to solid plastic.
Pictured here is an open cell foam that is only 3 per cent polymer.
Invented by German chemist Dr Otto Bayer back in the 1930s, polyurethanes were first widely used during World War II, commonly as a replacement for rubber, or as coatings on aircraft.
This almost alien-like landscape is a 1750x magnified view of a polyurethane, a polymer used in everything from mattresses and trainers to airport seats. Like any polymer, polyurethanes are made up of repetitive individual units. If you change these building blocks you can vary the properties of the final product: from liquid, through flexible foam, to solid plastic.
Pictured here is an open cell foam that is only 3 per cent polymer.
Invented by German chemist Dr Otto Bayer back in the 1930s, polyurethanes were first widely used during World War II, commonly as a replacement for rubber, or as coatings on aircraft.
