Polymer Synthesis (MS)

Many of the materials we use in our daily lives are polymers, chemicals made of short repeating units (monomers) linked to one another. In the 20th century we learned how to synthesize artificial polymers, or plastics, from fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas. Today, increased awareness of the environmental effects of mining these fuels has led to the development of plastics that can be synthesized from natural feedstocks, these plastics are referred to as “bioplastics”. In today’s first activity, you will model common polymer building blocks, and predict the properties of polymeric materials based on your models. In the afternoon, you will synthesize these polymers, and see how well your predictions match with reality!