TABLE OF CONTENTS Polymers are one of the most common materials encountered in our daily lives. They have replaced naturally occurring materials in many products, and in other cases they have enabled the production of new products that could not be manufactured before the advent of manmade polymers. While most people can identify a plastic or a polymeric bottle, they are less certain of a polymer s chemical composition, why certain polymers cannot be recycled together, or how to describe the chemical and physical structure of a polymer. This chapter will introduce the reader to polymers. The following questions will be addressed.
What is a polymer?
What are some of the unique properties of a polymer?
What are some common polymers and how are they used?
What are commonly observed polymer structures?
How do structure and physical properties relate?
Why are materials added to polymers? What is their affect on the physical properties of polymers?
Polymers are an essential structural material for modern life. Commonly referred to as plastics, these substances are available in a wide variety of forms: fibers, sheets, thin films, foam and bulk to name a few. The term plastic is used because polymeric materials are easily shaped and deformed during fabrication. [1] Polymers are differentiated from metals, another common engineering material, because they are most often organic molecules. Unlike the popular use of the term organic, which generally means pesticide free, organic in this sense means carbon based, and organic chemistry is the chemistry of...
