ERROR 1
ERROR 1
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
Password and Confirm password must match.
If you have an ACS member number, please enter it here so we can link this account to your membership. (optional)
ERROR 2
ACS values your privacy. By submitting your information, you are gaining access to C&EN and subscribing to our weekly newsletter. We use the information you provide to make your reading experience better, and we will never sell your data to third party members.
If this little face looks a little . . . well, deflated, that’s because it literally is. This is a scanning electron microscope image of a hollow polystyrene sphere. When Arkaprabha Giri, a postdoc in Christopher Jones’s lab at Georgia Tech, first made it as part of his research into materials for capturing carbon dioxide from air, the sphere was filled with ethyl acetate solvent from the polymerization. But after Giri removed the solvent, the sphere burst and collapsed into this dejected-looking husk. Giri says he was trying to make rigid spheres, but they turned out hollow after he added a pore-forming ingredient to his polymer recipe.
Submitted by Arkaprabha Giri
Do science. Take pictures. Win money. Enter our photo contest.
Join the conversation
Contact the reporter
Submit a Letter to the Editor for publication
Engage with us on Twitter