Today we conducted another polymer investigation. We were going to use body paint (which includes our vital monomer, liquid latex) except there were no places around that sold body paint, so we decided to stick with what we have, which was vinegar, borax, and glue. The experiment went really well. Here is how it went and our results:
First our problem, will vinegar have a different effect with borax and glue then water? We thought it would. It did. The polymer wasn't really a rubbery ball. It looked like a blob of cottage cheese at first, but soon dried. It had a skin over it and on the inside was a real crumby rubber and borax would come right off. The vinegar didn't seem to hold the core together as much as it did with the skin. And for the record, it smelled really bad, it stung the nostrils. It didn't bounce either, it just plopped onto the ground. The best find of the entire experiment, is that when you puncture the polymer, it had a wound on it. When you add vinegar to the wound, it will heal up in an instant. That was our best find. Now I think, how can this be applied to the medical field? Can the polymer act as a synthetic skin, the vinegar acting as the liquid that heals the wound. If that were the case, this would be a huge advance. But since we don't have polymer skin , we can't heal our wounds.
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