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Hi there, I am Mr Chapman. I was wondering have you ever thought about living in a world without any polymers
But first of all do you know what is a polymer
This is called a monomer.It is reapeated and times to lead to the formation of what is called a polymer
This is the molecule of polypropylene, its monomer is called propene
Polymers are everywhere, even where you don't expect them.Here I am surrounded by nature
This tree behind me is made out of cellulose, which is also known as a natural polymer synthesised by photosynthesis.This is the monomer of cellulose molecule
A world without polymer would mean a world without trees
Let’s say goodbye to our dear tree
Plants are not the only ones made of polymers
Polymers are the essence of all living things
For instance DNA could be found in the cells of humans and animals, including this cute
panda you can see
The DNA is made out of a monomer
which itself is composed of 4 main molecules
the first one is Adenine
The second is cytosine
Then guanine
And finally thymine
The repetition of this pattern will lead to DNA.Here are several representatons of a DNA structure
In theory without DNA this panda would not exisit neither would these people, nor myself
But we are not here to only talk about natural polymers.Indeed we will now focus on synthetic ones
I decided to come back otherwise who will be explaining all this to you
Some of them are not that known.Amongst these ones is Bakelite, which is nowadays used to make pool balls
These balls used to be made with ivory from elephants’ tusks
Thanks to Bakelite discovery, the exploitation of ivory is now over for that purpose
This Rubber Duck
is another example of the use of natural polymers
The rubber composing it
used to be extracted from a tree called Hevea
Incisions were made on its trunk in order to collect its sap.The discovery of rubber synthesis in 1909 allowed reducing the harvesting and exploitation of these trees exploitation of these trees
Here is the formula of rubber molecule; it belongs to the chemical family of elastomers
Its monomer is Isoprene
The non-stick surface on
frying pans is made of Polytetrafluoroethylene
also known as Teflon,which is a trademark, by Dupont de Nemours
Here is its Monomer
Teflon has many others application
it can be used as isolation for high voltage cables,or to make medical implant
such as vascular grafts. To sum up living in a world without synthetic polymers would mean living in hell
Since they are used and needed in many fiels.