The Men’s football World Cup final is taking place this weekend. While it sadly won’t be coming home, one team will take home the coveted World Cup – or, at least, a copy of it. In the latest edition of Periodic Graphics in C&EN, we take a look at the materials that make up the two separate trophies that have been awarded to the World Cup winners. See the full graphic on the C&EN site.
The 2018 World Cup kicks off today! Here’s some of the chemistry you can look out for over the next month; polymers make up the ball and the shirts, and chemistry also has a part to play in the vanishing spray that referees will be using during the games.
With the new season of the Premier League kicking off this weekend, it seemed a good time to take a look at the chemicals that make up your average football shirt. Even if the start of a new football season isn’t the kind of event to fill you with excitement, it’s still intriguing from a chemistry perspective to examine the different chemical materials used and the properties that they lend the finished shirt.
A number of chemical materials are used in the manufacture of the Brazuca, the World Cup football. The majority of these materials are polymers; these are very long molecules built up from many smaller component molecules. A simple, everyday example is polyethene, used to make some plastic bags. Different classes of polymers are used to achieve particular properties for the ball.
