• Litron3000@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      7 months ago

      How is that not plastic?
      Carbon fibre without plastic is just a hairy string
      And with silicone I don’t even understand where the confusion is coming from? What else would it be?

      • Alexstarfire@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        7 months ago

        You sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole and now I’m less sure of what plastic actually is. Epoxy, which is used for carbon fiber among many, many, many other things, isn’t something I’d say is plastic but I looked it up and it was about 50/50 on plastic vs not. I found similar conflicting information about silicone but it was leaning more toward not being a plastic.

        • Litron3000@feddit.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          7 months ago

          What would you define as plastic then?
          Or maybe share some source claiming epoxy isn’t plastic?

        • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. - Wikipedia

          : a plastic substance specifically : any of numerous organic synthetic or processed materials that are mostly thermoplastic or thermosetting polymers of high molecular weight and that can be made into objects, films, or filaments -Merriam Webster

          plastic, polymeric material that has the capability of being molded or shaped, usually by the application of heat and pressure. This property of plasticity, often found in combination with other special properties such as low density, low electrical conductivity, transparency, and toughness, allows plastics to be made into a great variety of products. These include tough and lightweight beverage bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), flexible garden hoses made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), insulating food containers made of foamed polystyrene, and shatterproof windows made of polymethyl methacrylate. -Brittanica

          Composites like CF and fiberglass use those materials as a stress distributing component and a plastic component as the rigid layer.

          Historically fiberglass composites used things like polyester resin - a polymer derived from oil - as the rigid component.

          If that’s not a plastic, what is it then?

          Metal? Wood? Glass?