September 21, 2021
By: Dwayne Page
A DeKalb County native is part of a team receiving national recognition for their scientific research in exploring a “greener” way to make nylon 6-6, a thermoplastic used for tire reinforcements, ski bindings, outdoor stadium seats and more.
Dr. Brian Agee , a chemistry lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and Physics in Augusta University’s College of Science and Amina Aly, undergraduate biology student, presented their research at the fall meeting of the American Chemical Society.
According to Augusta University’s Jagwire news website, the main presentation covered nylon 6-6, one of the most common nylons used for textile and plastic products. Nylon 6-6 is among the most versatile engineering thermoplastics and is used to make products that need durability, strength and weather resistance.
During their research, Aly and Agee used a solar reflector instead of a hot plate to create nylon 6-6. This decreased the process time from four hours to 30 minutes, and saved energy, since no electricity was used.
However, producing nylon 6-6 is not eco-friendly: It requires the endangered element zinc as a catalyst. But Aly and Agee’s research found that iron catalyzes almost as well as zinc — and iron is available nearly anywhere in the form of rust (i.e. ferric oxide).
“The difficulty of synthesizing nylon 6-6 in this manner is the associated risk of extinction of a primary reagent in the synthetic pathway, zinc,” said Agee.
“Zinc is currently 50-100 years away from extinction, giving focus to finding alternative synthetic methods without involving the use of zinc.”
ACS Fall 2021 was a hybrid meeting that was conducted virtually and in person from Aug 22-26.
Dr. Agee is the son of Jimmy and Caroline Agee and a 2002 graduate of DeKalb County High School.