It is not surprising to know that there are literally millions of ice skating rinks out there today that are made out of synthetic ice tiles. Not only do they not require an entire building to be cooled to under freezing temperatures, but they also allow for skaters to ice skate much like they would as if they were on a real ice rink. People that love to ice skate can even build their own ice skating rinks at home if they want to.
Early Stages of Synthetic Ice
In the beginning years of synthetic ice, there were a lot of challenges. Back in the early 1960s a group of people got together and created the very first publicly visible instances of ice panels. Back then, the type of plastic that was available was still in its infancy and had many years to grow.
In order for people to be able to skate on the flooring back then, there were many accommodations that had to be upheld. For starters, the floor had to be sprayed with what was known as a gliding agent. This agent was a silicone-based substance that coated the entire skating rink and had to be continually applied in order for the skaters to be able to skate on it without stopping in their tracks.
In addition to the constant spraying and treating of the surface, the leftover buildup of the silicone had to be scraped up and removed or else it would cause tremendous problems for the skaters. The buildup was sticky and gunky like wet duct tape.
Needless to say, syntactic ice flooring had a long way to go to even become comparable to the real ice that ice skaters learned to skate on.
Plastics and Polymers
If you explore the history of plastics you can see that many types of older types of plastics had long, complicated names. For instance polyoxymethylene, and the like. When developers got together to figure out a way to create the kind of flooring that ice skaters could actually skate on without all of the cumbersome steps, they pondered the idea of polymer-based plastics that could be forged into the ultimate plastic base to build upon.
See, polymer plastics are built on the model of the naturally occurring polymers that make up most of the matter that we see today. Polymers are large molecules that are chained together by smaller molecules. The structure of the matter that comes from the molecular makeup is stronger, but also more pliable and easy to manipulate on a cellular level.
What this means is by creating plastic on a molecular level the developers can form a type of plastic with specific properties that are imposed upon the needs of the user of the product. For example, polymer plastic-based synthetic ice can be infused with lubricants, conditioning agents, and even sunscreen protectants that keep out harmful UV rays. All of these extra ingredients can be added to the plastic in order to create the perfect flooring.
Extra lubricant that is activated by skates gliding across the surface is ideal for ice skaters becue it mimics the way that traditional ice creates and generates its own lubricant for the skaters. Ice uses water as a lubricant, where synthetic ice will use the infused lubricating agents of the plastic to help lubricate the surface for skaters.
Conclusion
Synthetic ice is made out of sophisticated plastic that can allow the floor to be used for a number of different purposes. This is one of the perks of having an ever-evolving technological brilliant in the United States. We get to experience some things that seem impossible, including an ice flooring that allows people to ice skate on it, as if they were on real ice.
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