This site presents two books about composite materials. The first, “The String and Glue of our World”, is a book about the science, engineering, history, and art of making things out of composites told in a manner that is hopefully approachable, engaging, and entertaining, even for the casual reader. It is not intended to replace or even be a textbook on the subject nor for the serious practitioner who has lots of experience with composites and needs a reference book. You don’t have to be a Ph.D. engineer or scientist to understand the book and appreciate the significance and beauty of composite materials. All you need really is a basic high school education in math and science (chemistry would help) and enough curiosity to want to know how these wonderful materials are made and most importantly why.

My second book, "Sustainable Composite Materials", which has a release date of April 6 2026, is intended to be a roadmap for the industry and other practitioners, as well as the interested general public, in how to reduce and potentially even eliminate the rather large carbon footprint that composite materials represents. The biggest problem is that once you stick the strings together with your glue, when you are done using it, the strings and glues don't come apart easily. This book demonstrates how to do that and what to do with what you get back. It also provides a fairly up to date status of where this industry stands today in efforts to become sustainable.

String and Glue is available from this website, McFarland Books and Amazon, as well as some physical bookstores, and many online booksellers. Sustainable Composite Materials is available from McFarland, Amazon, and other online booksellers, and of course from this site as well.

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Sustainable Composites are Becoming a Thing in the Auto Industry

#composites, #sustainability, #autoindustry, #naturalfiber, #bioplastic First, I’m back with another edition of this newsletter after taking most of the summer off. I had initially thought that there would not be much action in the industry in terms of sustainability over the summer months. Well, I was wrong – lots of stuff has happened and there are fun and interesting things to write about. The first fun thing I discovered and that I want to highlight is that the automob

2 hours ago6 min read

The Future of the Composites Industry (as I see it) and Wrap for the Summer

#composites, #sustainability, #compositesindustry, #mergersandacquisitions, #newplayers I thought this week, partly because I’m taking the summer off and partly because I have seen some rather interesting announcements recently, that I would talk about where I think the future or trend or arc of the industry is headed. And by future, since this is such a fast changing industry, what I mean is for the next decade or so. Predicting what is going to happen in this industry bey

Jun 2410 min read

Carbon Nanotubes – What Are They Good For?

#composites, #sustainability, #energyefficiency, #renewableenergy, #fibers, #resins Sorry about the rock and roll reference here, but there is so much hype about carbon nanotubes, I thought I would set the record a little bit more in actual applications of these interesting little beasties without all of the hyperbole that often accompanies any mention of them. First, what are these things? If you remember some of my earlier posts when I talk about “organic carbon” and the

Jun 177 min read

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Sustainable Composites are Becoming a Thing in the Auto Industry

#composites, #sustainability, #autoindustry, #naturalfiber, #bioplastic First, I’m back with another edition of this newsletter after taking most of the summer off. I had initially thought that there would not be much action in the industry in terms of sustainability over the summer months. Well, I was wrong – lots of stuff has happened and there are fun and interesting things to write about. The first fun thing I discovered and that I want to highlight is that the automob

2 hours ago6 min read

The Future of the Composites Industry (as I see it) and Wrap for the Summer

#composites, #sustainability, #compositesindustry, #mergersandacquisitions, #newplayers I thought this week, partly because I’m taking the summer off and partly because I have seen some rather interesting announcements recently, that I would talk about where I think the future or trend or arc of the industry is headed. And by future, since this is such a fast changing industry, what I mean is for the next decade or so. Predicting what is going to happen in this industry bey

Jun 2410 min read

Carbon Nanotubes – What Are They Good For?

#composites, #sustainability, #energyefficiency, #renewableenergy, #fibers, #resins Sorry about the rock and roll reference here, but there is so much hype about carbon nanotubes, I thought I would set the record a little bit more in actual applications of these interesting little beasties without all of the hyperbole that often accompanies any mention of them. First, what are these things? If you remember some of my earlier posts when I talk about “organic carbon” and the

Jun 177 min read

ORNL, Wind Energy, Strangely Shaped Carbon Fibers, and a Repair Robot

#composites, #carbonfiber, #windenergy, #ornl, #repairrobot, #compositesrepair Article reposted from www.nedpatton.com I saw a recent article in Composites World that had a micrograph of a section of cut carbon fibers. And this isn’t your typical micrograph that shows round fibers that have a sort of a messy outside surface and where you can sometimes see small defects in the surface. This one was completely different. So, since I’m the curious type I looked into this to s

Jun 109 min read

Some News About Recycling Plastics to Make Carbon Nanotubes

#composites, #sustainability, #recycling, #hardplastics, #carbon_nanotubes I came across a company at work that one of our Senior VP’s ran across at a conference. This company has been able to recycle plastics that have little to no value and turn them into high value products in carbon particulate like carbon nanotubes and hydrogen gas. They apparently use a microwave source to get the process energy to do this. Polyolefin / Carbon Paticulate Composite Plastic Pellets (Ce

Jun 38 min read

There’s a New Entrant in the Sustainable Natural Fiber Composites Business

#composites, #sustainability, #flaxfiber, #naturalfiber, #recyclable, #greencomposites I’ve seen a couple of posts in Composites World about a company in Turkey that has developed a series of textile products using a mix of flax and hemp fibers specifically for use in composites. And this company, Bpreg, doesn’t just deliver the fiber product, they also pair it with a recyclable thermoplastic resin and sell their products in prepreg form – hence the name Bpreg. I wanted to h

May 278 min read

Owens-Corning Glass Reinforcements and Good News in Glass Fiber Sustainability

#composites, #sustainability, #glassfiber, #fiberglassbusiness, #owenscorning Article reposted from www.nedpatton.com There is some news about the glass fiber reinforcement business that is pretty substantial that I need to talk about this week, primarily because it just became official. You may already know this, especially if you have read my posts in the past, but Owens-Corning fiberglass is the largest glass fiber manufacturer in the world – by far. This of course isn’t

May 207 min read

ABOUT ME

Ned Patton, Ph.D., P.E. lives and works in San Diego California. He has more than 40 years of experience in research and technology development, and has been involved with and has been a proponent of composites for over 35 of those years. Currently working at Oceaneering International as a senior technical professional, he is actively developing composite material parts and structures for use undersea.