Plastics Flashcards
What is a Synthetic compound?
A Synthetic compound is the name given to a material is man made
What are plastics usually made from?
Plastics are mainly made from Naphita (Crude Oil Fraction)
What is the name of the process which is used to make a plastic?
Polymerisation
What is Polymerisation?
Polymerisation is a process by which many small molecules called monomers join together to form one larger molecule called a polymer (the plastic)
What is significant about all monomers?
They all have a double bond
How are polymers named?
A polymer is named by adding the prefix “poly” to the name of the monomer
Why do we add single bonds at the end of each polymer chain?
To show that the part of the polymer that we are looking at is only a small section of the entire polymer
What is a Repeating Unit?
A repeating unit is a section of the polymer chain that is repeated over and over again to produce a full polymer
What is the significance of “n” in the Repeating Unit?
The “n” defines how many of the repeating units there are in the entire polymer
