Polymer Chemistry originates from Organic Chemistry

Polymer Chemistry is all about plastics. Polymer is made and formulated by different hydrocarbons into various types of plastic which we use in our everyday life. Polymer comes from two Greek words, “poly” meaning “many” and “mer” meaning “units”. In Chemistry, Polymer originates from Organic Chemistry.

Organic Chemistry is study of chemicals involving element Carbon. It begins from Crude Oil which is a mixture of many organic compounds. Crude Oil is the base of all Organic Chemistry and it stems into many different fields such as Polymer chemistry, Surface Chemistry etc.  When Crude Oil is dug up from the ground, it is separated into different hydrocarbons by a process called Fractional Distillation.

 Fractional Distillation involves heating up of Crude Oil at a very high temperature, whereby the Crude Oil evaporates into steam and then it is cooled down and collected into different fractions by the differences in their boiling points.  Compounds that have a low boiling point will be collected at the top fraction as they will the lightest. These compounds are light because they have the shortest chained hydrocarbons. As hydrocarbon increase in their length, their boiling point increases and they are collected in fractions further down. These hydrocarbons are called Alkanes and are used as Fuels. The shorter chain Alkanes are used as everyday fuel such as patrol and methane gas and the longer chain Alkanes are used as fuel for rockets and aeroplanes.

Longer chained Alkanes are also broken down into smaller chain Alkanes, by a process called cracking. This process also produces other hydrocarbon such Alkenes.  Alkenes are unsaturated hydrocarbons whereas Alkanes are saturated hydrocarbons. That means Alkanes have the maximum number of hydrogen attached to the each carbon atom and therefore that carbon is saturated and cannot have any more hydrogen attached. Whereas Alkenes have the capacity for more hydrogen if required and for that reason they are classed as unsaturated hydrocarbons.

Alkenes are the one that are used to formulate different polymers. One unit of an Alkene is called a “monomer” meaning “one unit” and when this unit is repeated, that chemical becomes a “polymer”. There are many different Alkenes, each depending on their number of carbon atom chain. If there are two carbon atoms in an Alkene, it is called an ethene. Ethene is a monomer because it is one unit. If many units of ethene are joined to each other that would become a polymer and the name of that polymer would be polyethene, simply meaning many units of ethene.  This follows for all Alkenes, for example, three carbon atom chain alkene is called propene. Many propene joined together would make the polymer polypropene.  Four carbon atom chain Alkenes are called butene and many butene joined together gives polybutene. Polystyrene is made from many styrene units joined together. We know all these types of plastics such as polythene and polystyrene, as they are in our everyday use. This is how various types of polymers i.e. plastics are made from different hydrocarbons. And this is how Polymer Chemistry originates from Organic Chemistry.