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Article: Chemistry. (report from American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco, California)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- April 18, 1992
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1992 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In the past, glue has proved the weak link in steel structures bonded by adhesives. But when scientists use a new class of polymers to prime the steel first, bonding improves by up to 50 percent, says Morton H. Litt, a polymer chemist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
He and Case Western Reserve colleague Toshio Kadowaki made these polymers from two kinds of starting units, or monomers. They used two to 22 monomers of one and 10 of another. The Cleveland researchers modified the first monomers by adding two hydrogen and oxygen side groups -- called hydroxyl groups -- to the ends of the units' side chains. When the researchers coat steel with ...