Polyethylene is a thermoplastic material made by the chemical industry and heavily used in consumer products, over 60 million tons being produced worldwide every year, in stuff like plastic bags and sandwich boxes.
Now, a team of scientists discovered it can also be used to make bulletproof vests, in the form of dense, high-molecular-weight fibers that can stop a bullet in its tracks. It's the first time someone has been able to create an ultra-thin, concealable, easy-to-move-in bulletproof vest from it.
A bullet-proof vest (also known as body armor) is a protective torso covering that absorbs the impact from gun-fired projectiles and explosive fragments. Soft vests made from layers of tightly-woven fibers protect wearers from projectiles fired from handguns, shotguns and shrapnel from explosives such as hand grenades.
Aramid fiber products such as Kevlar or Nomex (the latter is usually used for fire-resistant materials) are just about as tough as steel. Steel is tougher, but much heavier. In an application like a bulletproof vest or helmet or sail, you want toughness but also a lightweight quality.
This is where the polythene comes into play. Its maker, the company DSM of Heerlen, the Netherlands, is selling Dyneema SB61, a still tougher - and secret - formulation of polyethylene fiber, which they say is 15 times stronger than steel and 40 per cent stronger than that other staples of the bulletproof vest.
Ready to enter large scale production, the technology has been acquired by American Body Armor of Los Angeles, a company that uses the new fiber to make flexible, concealable vests just 5 millimeters thick for US police forces.
The most important applications of this product would be body armors that are not only tough enough to withstand the impact with a bullet, but also lightweight and flexible enough to cover most areas of the body, as opposed to today's bulletproof vests, that protect only the torso.
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