Polymers
- Topics:
- Chemical
- Tags:
- David A. Katz,
- Polymer
- Source:
- David A. Katz
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Overview: Natural polymers are found in many forms such as horns of animals, tortoise shell, shellac, rosin (from pine trees), asphalt, and tar from distillation of organic materials. One of the most useful of the natural polymers was rubber, obtained from the sap of the hevea tree. Rubber was named by the chemist Joseph Priestley who found that a piece of solidified latex gum was good for rubbing out pencil marks on paper. Natural rubber had only limited use as it became brittle in the cold and melted when warmed. In 1839, Charles Goodyear discovered, through a lucky accident, that by heating the latex with sulfur, the properties were changed making the rubber more flexible and temperature stable. That process became known as vulcanization.
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Format: PDF | Size: 266KB | Date: Apr 2002 | Pages: 15
