Polymers - Their Importance & History

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The study of polymers was the central theme of Experiment #6, with the focus being placed on two specific types of polymers – elastomers (silicone polymers) and viscoelastic polymers (an example of cross-linked polyvinyl alcohol.) Silicone polymers have a wide range of applications in many areas – medical, agricultural and even household products all rely on the science behind elastomers. A few of the vast number of examples include kitchen spatulas, construction sealants or breast implants. The inorganic molecule siloxane has the most flexible silicon and oxygen backbone of any polymer available, which is one of the reasons that it is worked with so often. In order to study the silicone elastomers, we created a simple bouncy ball with aqueous sodium silicate and ethanol. This procedure was pretty straightforward, but we did observe the interesting effect that the pipettes used for the sodium silicate quickly became clogged with what seemed like solid silicone. The sodium silicate would have reacted with a glass pipette, but it also did have some effect on the plastic pipettes as well. With repeated cleaning, we were able to obtain the correct amount of solution for the experiment. The three bouncy balls we created differed only in the amount of ethanol that we added to the mixture. The more ethanol that was added, the firmer the polymer that was created, and the resulting rebound heights followed accordingly. These results support the earlier observation about the firmness and elasticity of the three different polymer examples. I would hypothesize that the trial with the 7 ml of ethanol added probably had the longest polymer chain, since more monomers being added to the chain would result in an increase of interactions within the chain (such as Van der Waals interactions). The increase of interactions would increase properties such as melting or boiling

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