How is polymer made

Chemists may build artificial polymers from natural ingredients. Or they can use amino acids to build artificial proteins unlike any made by Mother Nature.

More often, chemists create polymers from compounds made in the lab. Polymer structures can have two different components. All start with a basic chain of chemically bonded links. This is sometimes called its backbone. One of these attachments may be as simple as a single atom. Others may be more complex and referred to as pendant groups. Sometimes pendant groups, instead of hanging loose from one polymer chain, actually connect two chains together.

Think of this as looking like a rung that stretches between the legs of a ladder. Chemists refer to these ties as crosslinks. They tend to strengthen a material such as a plastic made from this polymer. They also make the polymer harder and more difficult to melt. The longer the crosslinks, however, the more flexible a material becomes.

A chemical bond is what holds atoms together in a molecule and some crystals. Once oxygen forms two bonds, it ibecomes stable. None are left to hold a pendant group. Some polymers are flexible.

Others are very stiff. Just think of the many types of plastics: The material in a flexible soda bottle is very different from that in a rigid pipe made from polyvinyl chloride PVC. Sometimes materials scientists add other things to their polymers to make them flexible.

Known as plasticizers PLAA-stih-sy-zurs , these take up space between individual polymer chains. The term polymer is often used to describe plastics, which are synthetic polymers.

However, natural polymers also exist; rubber and wood, for example, are natural polymers that consist of a simple hydrocarbon, isoprene, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.

Proteins are natural polymers made up of amino acids, and nucleic acids DNA and RNA are polymers of nucleotides — complex molecules composed of nitrogen-containing bases, sugars and phosphoric acid, for example. His research in the s led the way to modern manipulations of both natural and synthetic polymers. He coined two terms that are key to understanding polymers: polymerization and macromolecules, according to the American Chemical Society ACS.

He was awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in "for his discoveries in the field of macromolecular chemistry. Polymerization is the method of creating synthetic polymers by combining smaller molecules , called monomers, into a chain held together by covalent bonds, according to ThoughtCo. Various chemical reactions — those caused by heat and pressure, for example — alter the chemical bonds that hold monomers together, according to Scientific American.

The process causes the molecules to bond in a linear, branched or network structure, resulting in polymers. These chains of monomers are also called macromolecules. Most polymer chains have a string of carbon atoms as a backbone. The resulting rubber was more pliable than brittle latex, and was used to make sandals, as well as balls for ceremonial games.

Approximately 3, years after the Central Americans were playing ball, Charles Goodyear combined natural rubber with sulfur to create vulcanized rubber, a polymeric substance still popular today — you may recognize Goodyear's name from the brand of automobile tires. As you go about your day, stop and consider all the structures around you.

It's hard to believe that a plastic lemonade container, the case around your smartphone or the tires that get you where you need to go, are all the result of tiny individual monomers bonding together to form polymers. Strength in numbers, right? Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close. Mobile Newsletter chat close. Mobile Newsletter chat dots. Mobile Newsletter chat avatar.

Mobile Newsletter chat subscribe. Physical Science. Chemical Processes and Tests. What's a polymer?