Polymers have for long been a fundamental piece of our everyday lives so much in fact that examples can be found almost ubiquitously. We generally an impact leading us to imagine that polymers are simply just plastics used for packaging, in household objects as well as making fibres, however is only the tip from the iceberg.
Polymers are widely-used in all sorts of applications you may not have thought much about. This web site enlightens you in regards to the story behind polymers and how it’s evolved from the time to serve several functions across a host of industries.
Origin of polymer science
Humans took advantage of the flexibility of polymers for years and years by means of oils, tars, resins and gums. However, it wasn’t prior to the industrial revolution how the polymer industry started to realize. In fact, the birth of polymer science could possibly be traced time for the mid-nineteenth century. Within the 1830s, Charles Goodyear developed the vulcanization method that transformed the sticky latex of natural rubber in to a useful elastomer for tire use. In 1909, Leo Hendrik Baekeland created a resin from two common chemicals, phenol and formaldehyde. The reaction between these chemicals paved the way for the development of a resin, called Bakelite, named after him. It had been this resin that served being a harbinger to many from the common polymers that we use today. The term “polymer” comes from the Greek roots “poly” and “mer,” which put together means “many parts.” Polymeric substances are made of countless chemical units called monomers, that happen to be gathered into large molecular chains composed of a huge number of atoms.
Classification of polymers
Based on their origin, thermoplastic resin can be classified as natural or synthetic polymers. Natural polymers are the types polymers that occur in nature understanding that that happen to be isolated from plant and animal resources. Starch, cellulose, proteins, natural rubber etc. are a few types of natural polymers. Though they are processed to find the product, since basic material comes from a natural source, these polymers are known as natural polymers. Natural rubber coming from tree latex is actually a polymer made out of isoprene units with a small percentage of impurities inside it.
With this context, biopolymers may also be significant. There is huge variety of biopolymers like polysaccharides, polyesters, and polyamides. They may be naturally manufactured by microorganisms. The genetic manipulation of microorganisms makes method for enormous risk of the biotechnological output of biopolymers with tailored properties ideal for high-value medical application like tissue engineering and drug delivery.
Synthetic polymers, his or her name indicates, are synthesized within the laboratory or factory through a number of chemical reactions from low molecular weight compounds. From the functional perspective they may be classified into four main categories: thermoplastics, thermosets, elastomers and artificial fibres. Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) is but one such thermoplastic manufactured by the polymerization from the monomer, methyl methacrylate (MMA). PMMA is often called acrylic plastic and lends its properties into a selection of consumer product applications. Being both a thermoplastic and transparent plastic, acrylic is utilized extensively within the automotive industry in trunk release handles, master cylinder, and dashboard lighting. Consumer products that use a constituent element of acrylic plastic include aquariums, motorcycle helmet lenses, paint, furniture, picture framing, and umbrella clamps, and others.
A few of the other synthetic polymers that we used in us include Nylons, utilized in fabrics and textiles, Teflon, utilized in non-stick pans and Polyvinyl Chloride, utilized in pipes.
As being a leading manufacturer of SUMIPEX® PMMA polymer, Sumitomo Chemical is pleased to help you understand its properties being a synthetic polymer. To know more, find us here.
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