Waterproof and magnetic paper could be the future

Don’t you just hate it when a piece of paper which you have been preserving for so long ends up wet, only to have the ink on it run all over the place? Scientists have come up with waterproof paper which might just change the way we stash important documents on in the future. A research team from the Italian Institute of Technology has successfully treated a normal sheet using a solution which holds a monomer, where this particular monomer is capable of forming “a polymeric shell around each individual fiber of paper and this gives the treated paper a waterproof property,” says team leader Despina Fragouli.

This monomer, when mixed with other particles, will also be able to adopt such properties. Take magnetic particles or silver nanoparticles (for anti-bacterial purposes), and Magneto will be a very happy man (so too, will Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets). No idea on what kind of artistic license can be applied for use with magnetic, waterproof and anti-bacterial paper, but I am quite sure that the market will be able to figure things out in due time.