No car without plastic! A quarter of the almost 7,000 components in a car are made of 150 different plastics – from windscreen wipers and bumpers to upholstery and coatings. They improve safety, increase comfort, reduce prices and save weight and therefore fuel. Find out what the weight saving is all about!
Interesting are the so-called hybrid materials made of plastic and metal, which are extremely stable and save up to 40 % in weight. If these could be sorted during recycling, there is no reason why the individual components cannot be reused.

While stability is of great importance for some polymer materials, for example dentures, long-lasting and stable plastics have disastrous effects on the coasts and in the oceans. On marine life and ultimately also on the people who like to have seafood or fish in their meals. 
What exactly microplastics are and why some plastics take longer to decompose can be explored in more detail at the “Microplastics“ station. The wooden steles give an insight into how long it takes for various plastic products to completely decompose.

Small OLEDs, i.e. organic light-emitting diodes, show here what they can do. These organic semiconductors can not only shine brightly, they have a very special property: they are so thin that you can use them in electronic devices with, for example, foldable or rollable displays. The polymer layer can even be printed – similar to a colour printer in your office.
Research is still being conducted on these OLEDs at our institute as well, in order to be able to use the findings to produce affordable and metal-free electronics in the future.

With this new technology, the temperature in the beehive can be measured precisely. Three-dimensionally in real time! Because when the sun shines strongly in summer, it is very warm in the front of the hive, while the back part, located in the shade, is a bit cooler. However, the bees prefer it to be the same temperature, namely 34-36°C.
Bees are usually very good at regulating the temperature themselves, but not when exposed to stress factors such as a lack of nutrients or the use of pesticides. The Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research has therefore developed this technology in order o be able not only to measure the temperature accurately, but also to regulate it. This might help bees in the future.
SWR Wissen filmed at our institute:

Why can polymers be so stable? The answer is visualized  in the rod forrest designed by Gisbert Baarmann, which shows the (partially) crystalline structure of polymers. If you walk through it, you quickly realise how densely packed the polymers have to be in order to be really stable. An example of  ‘densely packed’ is crystalline polyethylene, which is used to make hard-shell suitcases, among other things.
In the peep-boxes, you can take a look at so-called imperfections. These can be branches or large side chains. As a result, the chains cannot order themselves well, they are arranged less tightly and the plastic becomes lighter and softer. In other words, the opposite of densely packed.

The “Zukunftsinstitut“ (Future Institute) has drawn up a kind of network map. All possible future trends are recorded there and show an overview of how many there actually are and how much some trends are interconnected.
Fundamental research is carried out at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, from which new trends can emerge. Sometimes existing trends also provide an occasion to think about new topics and thus stimulate new research questions. At this station you are allowed to join in the discussion and contribute your ideas on the big topics such as mobility or health.

In addition to being certified as a LernOrt Nachhaltigkeit, the trail was also awarded the Dr. Ursula Grübler-Schoch Prize on 28 June 2025.
The Förderverein für MINT-Berufe honours remarkable engagement in MINT education 2025 with this award.