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The listening exercises in Business Spotlight Plus (p.15) are based on the article “A better building material” (Innovation, p. 11). Here, we provide you with the audio file and transcript.
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A better building material
How would you feel crossing a bridge that was made of plastic? Probably a little nervous. However, chemical engineerChemieingenieur(in)chemical engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created a new material that is as light as plastic but also stronger than steel.
The new material is a polymer, which is a substance made up of many small unitEinheit, Bestandteilunits stuck together, forming one-dimensional, spaghetti-like chains. All plastics, for example, are polymers. What’s different is that this new substance is two-dimensional. Using a new polymerization process, the MIT engineers created sheetFoliesheets called “polyaramides” — something scientists had believed to be impossible.
The material can be easily produced in large quantities and could have a very wide variety of uses, from lightweightleicht(gewichtig)lightweight protective coatingSchutzschichtprotective coatings to building blockBausteinbuilding blocks for bridges or other large structures. “We don’t usually think of plastics as being something that you could use to support a building, but with this material, you can enable new things,” says Michael Strano, professor of chemical engineering at MIT, in a statement from the university