Self-folding origami: Chemical programming allows Nafion sheets to fold and refoldPlastic with a tho
Self-folding origami: Chemical programming allows Nafion sheets to fold and refold
Plastic with a thousand faces: A single piece of Nafion foil makes it possible to produce a broad palette of complex 3D structures. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, researchers describe how they use simple chemical “programming” to induce the foil to fold itself using origami and kirigami principles. These folds can be repeatedly “erased” and the foil can be “reprogrammed”.
We have all seen the cranes and lotus flowers produced from a sheet of paper by practiced hands. Origami is the traditional Japanese art of folding that transforms paper into complex three-dimensional structures without the use of adhesive. Kirigami is a related technique in which the paper is strategically cut before folding. Both of these techniques have found application in modern technology.
Adebola Oyefusi and Jian Chen from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee (USA) have now presented a new variation on this technique. They chemically “programmed” Nafion foil so that heat causes it to fold itself into complex three-dimensional forms. The foil can also be “deprogrammed”. Nafion is a polymer that can “remember” its shape, so that a stretched piece of foil will return to its initial form upon heating.
