Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS)
Most famously used in LEGO bricks, ABS is noteworthy for being very lightweight while also being extremely durable and shock absorbent. This makes it ideal for a dizzying number of applications—automotive bumpers, golf club heads, helmets, small kitchen appliances, toys (see: LEGO), and even canoes used in whitewater rafting are all made with ABS. It’s also one of the most common materials used in 3D printing.
Polycarbonate (PC)
PC is used primarily in electronic applications. It’s flame-retardant and heat-resistant, and it makes for a good electrical insulator, ensuring that all the electricity flowing through something goes where it’s supposed to, and not somewhere it shouldn’t. PC is also used heavily in construction and automotive and aerospace manufacturing, mainly because it’s both strong and naturally transparent. Also, if you still have CDs or DVDs laying around, the discs themselves are all made of PC.
Polyether Ether Ketone (PEEK)
The most demanding environments call for PEEK—a plastic material that both possesses otherworldly resistance to mechanical and chemical changes, but that also maintains those properties across a wide range of temperatures. This makes it perfect for things like wheel bearings, pistons and pumps, but also as an advanced biomaterial used in medical implants meant to last for decades. Fun fact for physics and engineering geeks: PEEK is one of the only plastic materials that is compatible with ultra-high vacuum applications, which are necessary to conduct scientific and even particle physics research like the kind performed in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
High-Impact Polystyrene (HIPS)
Sure, you’ve heard of polystyrene (PS), but HIPS is its less common older brother, which amps up the impact resistance properties of PS to create a material that can be used in cases where durability doesn’t have to be sacrificed for low cost. A number of interior kiosks, shelves and fixtures are often made with HIPS, as are many indoor signs since one of HIPS’ properties is that it’s easy to paint, glue or print on.
Nylon
Did you know Nylon was a plastic? It makes sense when you think about it but it’s still regularly overlooked. Nylon is less a single plastic than a broad group of them made from specific molecules called polyamides. It was first used as bristles in toothbrushes, then in women’s stockings before World War II diverted all nylon production to parachutes. Today nylon is still used in fabrics and fibers, but it’s also found in molded car parts and electrical equipment, as well as films for meat packaging and even cooking supplies (for instance, those oven bags you cook your turkey in on Thanksgiving are made of nylon).
Acrylics
Acrylics are another category of plastics that includes numerous polymers that perform a wide variety of tasks. Acrylics are noted for their clearness, among many other attributes. That might explain why one of the most famous acrylic polymers is polymethyl methacrylate, more commonly known as Plexiglas or Lucite. Acrylics are also used in nail polish and as outdoor paints and coatings. New parents might encounter an acrylic polymer as well when they change their baby’s diaper—most disposable diapers contain sodium polyacrylate, a hyper-absorbent polymer that can absorb between 100 to 1000 times its mass in water.