Overview
When you think of the word “polymer”, what do you envision — what comes to mind? My guess is that you immediately think “plastics”. Indeed, the materials we call plastics are polymers, but not all polymers are plastics, not by a long shot! Through this course, we will discover how diverse polymer materials really are, in terms of both their chemistry and structure and explore some of the unique properties that make polymers so useful in our daily lives.
Take a moment and look around you — can you identify some materials that are made of polymers? Perhaps you are wearing a shirt that has cotton (a natural polymer, cellulose) or pants that are stretchy because they have Spandex (a synthetic polymer)? Are you wearing contacts or glasses? Both are polymers — contact lenses are made of crosslinked 2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate and the lenses of most glasses are polycarbonate. Do you have hair and fingernails? (I hope so!) They are made of keratin, another polymer. You are “you” because of your DNA — yet another example of a polymer! In fact, it may be hard for you to find materials around you that aren’t made of polymers, at least in part. Polymer materials have revolutionized our world — don’t you want to know what they are and why they’re so special?
This is the root segment of the polymer shown above that is used to make contact lenses.
(Use your mouse to manipulate the interactive molecular diagram.)
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
- Provide examples of polymer materials in daily life.
- Define monomer, dimer, trimer, oligomer, polymer.
- Describe the difference between monomer and repeat unit.
- Define and compare homopolymer, copolymer, and blend.
- Draw skeletal structures of linear polymers, branched polymers, network polymer.
- Compare statistical copolymer, random copolymer, alternating copolymer, block copolymer, graft copolymer, and draw schematics of each.
- Compare and contrast the properties and structure of thermoplastics, elastomers, thermosets.
- Define glass transition temperature and melting temperature, compare and contrast.
- Calculate the degree of polymerization
- Calculate the mean repeat unit molar mass
- Calculate and contrast number average molar mass, weight-average molar mass
- Define and calculate molar mass dispersity
Lesson Checklist
| Activity | Content | Access / Directions |
|---|---|---|
| To Read | Read all of the online material for Lesson 1 | Continue navigating the online material. |
| To Read | Chapter 1 - Concepts and Nomenclature
| The chapter readings come from the textbook, Introduction to Polymers. |
| To Do | Homework Assignment 1 (Practice) | Registered students can access the homework assignment in the Lesson 1 module. |
Please refer to the Canvas Calendar for specific timeframes.
Questions?
If you have questions, please feel free to post them to the General Questions and Discussion forum. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help a classmate.