Abstract: A polymer is a molecule in which some particular bonded arrangement of atoms occurs more than once. The term “high polymer” is used to describe systems in which the number of structurally repeating units is very large. The term “polymeric material” is used for materials with this type of structure. The term “polymer” is also used loosely in referring to a material with a polymeric structure. The structural repeating unit is called the mer and polymers differ in the way in which the mers are bonded together. Most of these man-made polymeric materials fall into the general category of materials known as plastics; however, they also include synthetic rubbers, and alternatives for drying oils in paints and adhesives. In a linear polymer, the mers are bonded in an end-to-end arrangement. The size of a polymer molecule can be expressed in terms of the degree of polymerization, which is the number of structurally repeating units in the molecule, denoted by n in the formula. It is more common to define the size of polymer molecules in terms of molecular weight.
Publication Year: 1972
Publication Date: 1972-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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