# Electrically Conductive Plastic Invented. Link **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 12, 2008, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electrically-conductive-plastic-invented-link/476802 "2008-12-12T00:42:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electrically-conductive-plastic-invented-link/476802/1 "2008-12-12T00:42:59Z")
Well, you don’t see this every day, Chauncy. > **[Plastic Made To Conduct Electricity](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081209111514.htm)** > > Plastic that conducts electricity and metal that weighs no more than a feather? It sounds like an upside-down world. Yet researchers have succeeded in making plastics conductive and cutting production costs at the same time. > [@](#): > > ScienceDaily (Dec. 10, 2008) — Plastic that conducts electricity and metal that weighs no more than a feather? It sounds like an upside-down world. Yet researchers have succeeded in making plastics conductive and cutting production costs at the same time. > > The IFAM in Bremen has devised a solution that combines the best of both worlds without requiring new machinery to process the components. > > The new solution is simpler: a composite material. The different materials are not merely slotted together or bonded, but mixed in a special process to form a single material. This process produces a homogeneous and fine-meshed electrically conductive network. The composite possesses the desired chemical stability and low weight, coupled with the electrical and thermal conductivity of metals. As it will no longer be necessary in future to integrate metal circuit boards and the components will soon be able to be produced in a single work step, the production costs and the weight of the material are drastically reduced. OK, I get the very strong feeling that this is gonna cause manufacturing costs to drop like a stone. Are we looking at injection-molded auto engines in the near future? ---
**Author:** ![Omegaman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e480ec/32.png) [@Omegaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omegaman)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electrically-conductive-plastic-invented-link/476802/2 "2008-12-12T01:15:34Z")
This is off topic I know, but it made me think of when I was a kid. I asked my dad, a master electrician, did dielectric silicone really work? I was changing an ignition module or something and he tells me, even a 2 by 4 will conduct electricity if you put enough amps behind it. Fun times. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electrically-conductive-plastic-invented-link/476802/3 "2008-12-12T01:31:29Z")
Isn’t this just a plastic version of conductive paint, that’s been around for donkey’s years? ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electrically-conductive-plastic-invented-link/476802/4 "2008-12-12T01:45:54Z")
A conductive plastic! That’s amazing! If only they’d invented that [almost forty years ago](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyacetylene) they’d probably get a Nobel Prize or something. Oh wait a minute, this isn’t 1970, and that’s what happened. I know it’s a bit snarky, but thiis technology is very very old news. The real problem is integrating it with metallic/inorganic devices, but even that has been solved. Newer technology is finding organic based LED’s so that you can have flexible pieces of plastic that act as displays. This also has been done. It’s true though, that we have not really seen this technology in everyday devices yet. We will though. We will see it very soon. Some devices have already been produced. I think one of the major magazines even produced a cover that flashed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there must be something good about this material the article refers to. It could simply be that it can be procesed in the same way that metals are. That would be an advantage since current producers would have fewer adjustments to make in their processing. But processing of organic conductors is already being done. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electrically-conductive-plastic-invented-link/476802/5 "2008-12-12T01:49:25Z")
> [@Omegaman](#): > > I was changing an ignition module or something and he tells me, even a 2 by 4 will conduct electricity if you put enough amps behind it. Fun times. He meant volts, not amps. Even then, it’s a misleading statement. Dielectric (insulating) materials aren’t conductive in the way the term is normally used, that is to say, they are non-Ohmic–there is no linear relationship between current flow through it and voltage applied across it. However, at some voltage level depending upon the material and the thickness of the material, the dielectric properties suddenly break down, the material is partially ionized and a large current flows. This dielectric strength is an important characteristic to test in electrical equipment (called a hipot test, after the brand name of the equipment most commonly used in the industry to conduct the test) since it’s vital to safety to know the equipment’s insulation can withstand the highest voltage the equipment is reasonably expected to ever be exposed to. The industry standard is the rated line voltage x 2 plus another 1000 V. ---
**Author:** ![Sunrazor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sunrazor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunrazor)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electrically-conductive-plastic-invented-link/476802/6 "2008-12-12T01:59:40Z")
But wait a minute! If there’s a plastic that conducts electricity – um, how do you insulate it? I mean, there’s something about that that’s just wrong! Morally and ethically, I mean. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electrically-conductive-plastic-invented-link/476802/7 "2008-12-12T02:14:17Z")
You insulate it with a plastic that does not conduct electricity. Seriously, I apologize for the snark, but when I started grad school almost ten years ago, this technology was just barely around the corner. Unlike other technology predictions, this one has marched right along. It is not only here, but you have probably seen it. Plastic logic circuits exist. I don’t know if they are being produced commercially now, but they will. The barrier right now I think is processing since standard photolithography does not work as far as I know. ---
**Author:** ![Sunrazor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sunrazor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunrazor)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electrically-conductive-plastic-invented-link/476802/8 "2008-12-12T02:39:36Z")
> [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > You insulate it with a plastic that does not conduct electricity. Ah, but you still haven’t addressed my ethical and moral concerns! ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electrically-conductive-plastic-invented-link/476802/9 "2008-12-12T02:50:44Z")
> [@Sunrazor](#): > > Ah, but you still haven’t addressed my ethical and moral concerns! Of course not. Let there be no mistake, this technology is the product of Satan himself. I in fact, was concieved as a product of an illegitamate relationship between a dog and a cat solely for the purpose of infecting society with this demon based technology. Ethical and moral concerns are of no consequence to me. ---
**Author:** ![Sunrazor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sunrazor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunrazor)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2008, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electrically-conductive-plastic-invented-link/476802/10 "2008-12-12T03:26:42Z")
Aha! I knew it! Now, copper wire and ceramic insulators – them’s some ethics right there! Because my 20th century brain can understand that! ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2008, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electrically-conductive-plastic-invented-link/476802/11 "2008-12-13T20:11:16Z")
\>If there’s a plastic that conducts electricity – um, how do you insulate it? Simple. You coat it with the filaments from Christmas tree lights. They don’t seem to conduct under any circumstances.