This is an enlarged image of the arm-and-leg illustration on the Technology and Technology Summary pages.  Additional comments about polymer recycling have been inserted in italics.

Regular polymers use two functional groups (a head and a tail) to connect monomers (polymer pieces) into polymers (long chains). The head bites the tail of the next monomer to form the chain.

This kind of polymerization process is called a dehydration condensation.  This means that the reaction is reversible under extreme conditions (high temperature, high pressure, and strong alkali), which makes dehydration condensation  polymers recyclable.

NSI's monomers use four functional groups (a head, tail, arm and leg). The head starts out biting the tail of the next monomer (step 1).

But then the leg reaches backward to stabilize the head-tail linkage behind it (step 2).

Then the arm reaches forward to stabilize the tail-head linkage in front of it (step 3).

This "freezes" each polymer linkage into a specific conformation (a molecular posture).

This gives NSI's polymers a nanostructured backbone.  This makes NSI's polymers vector directional.

Due to the higher-than-average costs of these monomers, recycling is an excellent business line for NSI to develop.