PVC

I found this site that has great info on polymers, as exciting as that sounds! But it was cool to see the common polymers out there and their molecular formulas along with scientific names. I've always been familiar with PVC pipe, but had no idea that PVC stood for poly vinyl chloride.


http://www2.chemistry.msu.edu/faculty/reusch/VirtTxtJml/polymers.htm

Polymers

I figure I should give a good definition of polymers as well since I started talking about polymerization.

 A polymer is a large molecule composed of repeating structural units. These sub-units are typically connected by covalent chemical bonds.  Although the term polymer is sometimes taken to refer to plastics, it actually encompasses a large class of compounds comprising both natural and synthetic materials with a wide variety of properties.

Its good to notice that polymers exist naturally as well, such as silk, wool, and more importantly from a biologist's eyes, DNA.

Here are 4 polymer chains pictured below. seeing how tiny these polymers are can really say a lot about how small each individual molecule is. These are microscopic!

Of Course....

After looking up various sites and youtube videos, I’ve realized how much I have forgotten about polymerization! I was thinking too broadly when talking about changing colors of solutions, and now I’m smacking my forehead realizing what polymerization really is. It’s essentially creating a substance that is unified throughout and likely a very tough, viscous, or solid result from a chemical reaction.  I realized that polymers are really all around us. Plastics, clothing, adhesives, rubber, plenty of things that we use in everyday life. It’s funny this is something that I really should have known, and definitely have known once before, but now it is much more clear. The words that start with “poly” should have given me a good hint. Things like polyester and polyethylene plastic should have been good indicators so that’s a bad call on my behalf. This is a clear cut example on how I read a chemical reaction on paper and don’t always follow through on what it actually entails.

 

Polymerization

Another aspect of organic chemistry I liked to explore was polymerization. Now I see this word and nothing really rings a bell, except it must have to do with polymers. I find that when I see chemical equations on a piece of paper, it just looks like letters and symbols to me. There really isn’t much more meaning that I see. The occasional lab work helps with that, but also I do not see results that I can see in daily life. Changing a color to a liquid through a chemical reaction can be interesting, but I don’t really know how much it could affect me in the ‘real world’ sense.  So i’ve decided to research what types of polymerization happen that create great products that make organic chemistry apply to me in daily life, and maybe see some in action.

I’ve started out by simply getting a definition to polymerization.

Polymerization- a process of reacting monomer molecules together in a chemical reaction to form three-dimensional networks or polymer chains.

Now this seems pretty basic in that its essentially the creation of polymers from monomers, where the monomer’s double bond is reformed into single bonds with another monomer and forms a polymer.

An example would be ethylene to polyethylene

CH2=CH2         ->                     -(CH2-CH2)-n

Isomer Examples

Here I’ve drawn out some examples of isomers. 

 

The sheer depth of organic chemistry can be shown through isomers in that the slightest change in a molecule could mean the biggest change. When we order pancakes and get waffles, we say thats close enough. But when we get two molecules that have the same molecular formula but different structural formula, then it’s really not the same.