Cheaper and easier way found to make plastic semiconductors

Cheap, flexible and sustainable plastic semiconductors will soon be a reality thanks to a breakthrough by chemists at the University of Waterloo. Professor Derek Schipper and his team at Waterloo have developed a way to make conjugated polymers, plastics that conduct electricity like metals, using a simple dehydration reaction the only byproduct of which is water. “Nature has been using this reaction for billions of years and industry more than a hundred,” said Schipper, a professor of Chemistry and a Canada Research Chair in Organic Material Synthesis. “It’s one of the cheapest and most environmentally friendly reactions for producing plastics.”