Organic Chemistry: Concepts and Applications - Headley Allan D. 2020

Synthetic Polymers and Biopolymers
20.1 Introduction

Polymers can be divided into two broad categories, synthetic polymers and biopolymers. Biopolymers are polymers that are made by living organisms; these include carbohydrates, nucleic acids, proteins, and peptides and will be covered in the last section of this chapter. Synthetic polymers are polymers that are typically made from simple starting compounds and converted into polymers through various chemical reactions. Many chemical industries specialize in the synthesis of different types of polymers. Synthetic polymers are very important compounds in our everyday lives. We just have to look around, and we can see the many applications of polymers. The physical properties of synthetic polymers allow these polymers to be used for different purposes. Some polymers are very hard and durable, and as a result, they are used as desk surfaces, pipes, CDs, etc., whereas some polymers are more flexible and are used as bottles, clothing, and wraps. Polymers, as the name suggests, are many “mers,” which means units. Thus, a polymer is made up of many simple units. The process of transforming the simple units of polymers to the actual polymer is called polymerization, as illustrated in Reaction (20-1), where n represents numbers that are typically in the hundreds.

(20-1)

Some of the most useful polymers are shown in Table 20.1, along with the monomers from which they are made.

In this chapter, we will examine the various reactions that lead to polymerization and the mechanism involved in each type reaction. We will also look at ways to identify polymers and the characterization of polymers.