In the quest to wring energy from every source imaginable, scientists are putting the squeeze on a common plastic ingredient. Applying force to polymers in water generates enough energy to drive chemical reactions, a team reports online March 1 in Angewandte Chemie.
The technique won’t replace large-scale energy operations, but it offers a way to harness the wisps of unused energy generated by everyday endeavors, like walking or compacting plastic bags at a recycling center. And capturing such energy could lead to cheap, clean ways to sanitize a small container of water, for example, or to run a simple lab bench reaction.
Scientists knew that bonds can break when mechanical force is applied to a polymer. The breakage can generate free radicals, atoms with unpaired electrons that are eager to engage in further reactions. Researchers thought these free radicals hung out wherever they were generated. But the new work shows that when a polymer is squeezed in water, the free radicals migrate and react with the water, generating enough hydrogen peroxide to spur other reactions.