Rearranged polymer chains create degradable materials with potential for stronger, tougher packaging

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Add as preferred source (From left) Yifan Cheng, assistant professor of food science and technology, with Ph.D. students Huida Duan, Ziyu Huo, and Xiaoyu Xie, in the lab of chemical engineering associate professor Rong Tong, who is in Japan for the fall 2026 semester. Credit: Peter Means for Virginia Tech. What if the key to making stronger, more sustainable plastics isn't changing their ingredients, but rearranging their molecules? Virginia Tech researchers have put that idea to the test, creating degradable polymers with a new molecular architecture that combines properties often difficult to achieve in one material: strength, toughness, flexibility and the ability to block oxygen.