Reiwa Chemist Yōko Takatsukasa Reincarnation: Saving Japan with Plastic Material

The Baby Bird Picks Up the Thread

2021/9/25: I rewrote the entire chapter because it was so unsightly when I reread it. The first chapter has also been revised, so please read that as well.

- Toshitsugu Utei

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Yōko Takatsukasa, a four-year-old daughter of a Prince, was relieved that the experiment to synthesize Nylon 66, which she had conducted in a spur-of-the-moment fashion, had gone off without a hitch.

"What a relief... if we had failed, I don't think we would have been to intervene in the Russo-Japanese War's outcome..." Yōko said as she leisurely reeled in her nylon. "If I do this much, will Father be able to understand my nonsense? Or delusions? Well, actually, it's neither, but he should be able to listen more to such things. I don't know who the teachers at the University of Tokyo were at this time, but I'm sure they would be awestruck. It was made from air and coal, stronger than iron, thinner than spider silk, am I right?"

As one might expect, the historical sales slogan is hype, but the superiority of Nylon 66 lies in its physical properties. The strong intermolecular interactions created by the amide bonds and the good packing properties of its linear molecular shape led to its high crystallinity, and as a resin, it boasted high heat resistance, strength, and airtight (gas barrier) properties.

"It's useful as a fiber, which is also convenient for Japan today. At that time, Japan's main industry was light manufacturing using raw silk, so it was still easier to diver know-how and equipment than to make other resin products."

Although fine fibers are pleasant to the touch, they are easily damaged. The tensile strength of nylon is about 50% higher than that of silk, which is why nylon is often used for stockings and other items that require particularly fine threads.

"Above all, nylon is too strong to be synthesized by the interfacial polymerization method. If it had been a resin that required chain polymerization, which requires intense reaction conditions, it would not have been invented so quickly. I don't mean to sound like a cheater after having done it myself, but it is."

Well, Nylon 66 also has its own weaknesses, such as its tendency to absorb water and lose performance, its susceptibility to salts, and its warping and deformation, so it is not an all-purpose invincible material. However, she was well aware of these factors. After all, in a previous life, more than a hundred years in the future, she had touched the material at her workplace.

"But how did I, who use to run a resin shop in Reiwa, become a daughter of a Prince in the Meiji era...?" Yōko sighed as she spun the glass rod, thinking of a supernatural phenomenon that science could not explain.

The nylon threads that keep spitting out endlessly from the glass jar were not going to break for a while longer.