Researchers have revealed that a candle and a TV screen may have much more in common than believed.
Research recently carried out by Professor Tanja Schilling and associates, Muhammad Anwar and Francesco Turci, at the Physics and Material Science Research Unit of the University of Luxembourg made this surprising connection, which works as follows.
Prof Schilling and her colleagues made a study of paraffin at the individual molecular level and examined the process by which molten wax crystallises, with startling results.
They found that wax molecules align in a similar way to molecules in liquid crystal before they slide into their final positions and that this closely resembles the processes that are used in liquid crystal display (LCD) technology, like your television screen.
Prof Schilling said that this research will be of value to the plastics industry as the polymers which make up plastics are really just long-chain versions of the molecules in wax.
The study has been published in The Journal of Chemical Physics .
