December 02, 2015

Chapter 15 - Lecture 9 – Polymerization in Alkenes

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

Figure
Source of Figure
Figure 9
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Polymer:

Polymers are synthetic macromolecules, made up of numerous small repeating units called the monomers.  

Addition Polymerization:

Addition polymerization can be defined as the reaction in which, a large number of alkene molecules join together, under a temperature of 200°C and pressure of 2000 atmosphere and oxygen as the reaction initiator, to form a single product called the polymer.

Let us consider the polymerization of ethane to Polyethene. Here, the monomer is a single molecule of ethane. Figure 9 shows the reaction.

Figure 9:


The resulting polymer is NO longer a hydrocarbon like its parent reactants, instead is plastic in nature and has wide range on industrial uses.

Uses of Polyethene:

Polyethene is plastic in nature and has a wide variety of industrial uses. It is used to make:
  1. Plastic bags
  2. Stretch wraps
  3. PVC pipes
  4. Containers
  5. Toys 


                                                                                       ©Tanzeela Zafar Siddiqui