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Some Polymers & its Applications

 Polyethylene (PE)
• Polyethylene - most seen in daily life.
• grocery bags, shampoo bottles, children's
toys, and even bullet proof vests
• It's the simplest of all commercial
polymers.
• A molecule of polyethylene is nothing
more than a long chain of carbon atoms,
with two hydrogen atoms attached to each
carbon atom.
• a real chain of polyethylene has
thousands of repeats.
• Sometimes instead of having hydrogens
attached, will have long chains of
polyethylene - called branched, or low-
density polyethylene, or LDPE.
• no branching, called linear polyethylene,
high-density polyethylene, or HDPE.
 Polypropylene (PP)
• It serves double duty, both as
a plastic and as a fiber.
• As a plastic - dishwasher-safe food
containers,
• fiber, polypropylene is used - indoor-
outdoor carpeting, around swimming
pools and miniature golf courses, outdoor
carpet - it is easy to make colored
polypropylene, doesn't absorb water,
like nylon does.
 Polystyrene (PS)
• outside housing of the computer
• housings of things like hairdryers, TVs and
kitchen appliances. Model cars and airplanes
many other toys.
• There's also foam packaging and insulation,
and a lot of the molded parts on the inside of
your car, like the radio knobs.
 Polyvinyl chloride (PVC)
• Poly(vinyl chloride) is the plastic known at
the hardware store as PVC.
• Plumbing, small budgets use to make goal
posts for their football fields.
• The "vinyl" siding used on houses is made
of poly(vinyl chloride).
• Inside the house, PVC is used to make
linoleum for the floor.
• PVC resists two things that hate each
other:
• fire and water.
• Because of it's water resistance - used for
raincoats and shower curtains, and of
course, water pipes.
• It has flame resistance, too, because it
contains chlorine.
• When you try to burn PVC, chlorine atoms
are released, and chlorine atoms inhibit
combustion. Big green atoms.
 Polymethyl methacrylate
(PMMA)
• used as a shatterproof replacement for
glass.
• The chemical company Rohm and Haas
makes windows out of it and calls it
Plexiglas®.
• Ineos Acrylics also makes it and calls it
Lucite. Lucite is used to make the surfaces
of hot tubs, sinks, one-piece
bathtub/shower units, among other things.
• another advantage over glass. PMMA is more
transparent than glass.
• glass windows are made too thick, they become
difficult to see through. But PMMA windows can be
made as much as 13 inches (33 cm) thick, and
they're still perfectly transparent.
• This makes PMMA a wonderful material for making
large aquariums, with windows which must be thick
in order to contain the high pressure of millions of
gallons of water.
• Eg. largest single window in the world, an
observation window at California's Monterrey Bay
Aquarium, - one piece 54 feet long, 18 feet high,
and 13 inches thick (16.6 m long, 5.5 m high, and
33 cm thick)
• PMMA is also found in paint. Acrylic "latex" paints
Polyethylene terephthalate
(PET)
• presence of a large aromatic ring in the PET repeating units
gives the polymer notable stiffness
• polymer chains are aligned with one another in an orderly
arrangement by drawing (stretching).
• In this semicrystalline form, PET is made into a high-strength
textile fibre marketed under such trademarked names as
Dacron, by the American DuPont Company
• The stiffness of PET fibres makes them highly resistant to
deformation, so they impart excellent resistance to wrinkling
in fabrics.
• used in durable-press blends with other fibres such as rayon,
wool, and cotton, reinforcing the inherent properties, ability
of the fabric to recover from wrinkling.
• PET is also made into fibre filling for insulated
clothing and for furniture and pillows.
• When made in very fine filaments, it is used in
artificial silk, and in large-diameter filaments it
is used in carpets.
• Among the industrial applications of PET are
automobile tire yarns, conveyor belts and
drive belts, reinforcement for fire and garden
hoses, seat belts (an application in which it
has largely replaced nylon),
• nonwoven fabrics for stabilizing drainage
ditches, culverts, and railroad beds, and
nonwovens for use as diaper topsheets and
disposable medical garments.
 Polycarbonate (PC)

• Polycarbonate is a clear plastic used to

make shatterproof windows,
• lightweight eyeglass lenses,
• General Electric makes this stuff and sells
it as Lexan®.
• Polycarbonate gets its name from the
carbonate groups in its backbone chain.
• polycarbonate used in eyeglasses is a
thermoset.
• Thermosets do not melt, and they can't be
remolded. They are used to make things
that need to be really strong and heat
resistant.
 Polyamide (PA) - Nylon
• nylon 6,6, because each repeat unit of the
polymer chain has two stretches of carbon
atoms; each is six carbon atoms long.

• Another kind of nylon is nylon 6.

• Nylons are one of the most common
polymers used as a fiber.
• Nylon is found in clothing similar to the
natural polymer silk,
• to make parachutes and rope.
• Nylon is also used in other places, such
as in the form of a thermoplastic.
• Before stockings or parachutes, the very
first nylon product was a toothbrush with
nylon bristles.
 Acrylonitrile butadiene
styrene (ABS)
• The general level ABS has characteristics
of high gloss, high rigidity.
• The background is white, stable and
suitable for all kinds of home appliances,
computer peripherals,
• OA shell products and toys and other
products
• ABS also applies to other secondary
processing of applications, such as
painting, plating, bonding and so on.
• Telephone casings / lamp seats / toys
• office supplies / clock casings
• buttons for household appliances
• TV front casings
• copier casings / telephone casings
• boxes for cosmetics / tire covers
• Safety helmets
• motorcycle fenders
• shoe heels /
• snow sport products water
filter casings
Polyether Etherketone
(PEEK)
• semi-crystalline thermoplastic polymer with
mechanical properties favorable for bio-medical
applications.
• PEEK-LT1, PEEK-LT2, and PEEK-LT3 have
already been applied in different surgical fields:
• spine surgery, orthopedic surgery, maxillo-facial
surgery etc.
• To improve their antimicrobial capabilities,
• PEEK based materials are becoming an
important group of biomaterials used for bone
and cartilage replacement as well as in a large
number of diverse medical fields.
Polytetra fluoroethylene
(PTFE)
• a strong, tough, waxy,
nonflammable synthetic resin
• Known by trademarks as Teflon, Fluon,
Hostaflon, and Polyflon,
• slippery surface, high melting point, and
resistance to attack by almost all chemicals.
• it is also fabricated into industrial products,
including bearings, pipe liners, and parts for
valves and pumps.
• PTFE is used as a non-stick coating for pans and
other cookware.
• It is non-reactive, partly because of the strength
of carbon–fluorine bonds,
• so it is often used in containers and pipework for
reactive and corrosive chemicals.
• used as a lubricant, reduces friction, wear and
energy consumption of machinery.
• It is commonly used as a graft material in surgical
interventions.
• Also, it is frequently employed
as coating on catheters; this interferes with the
ability of bacteria and other infectious agents to
adhere to catheters and cause hospital-acquired
infections.
Polyurethane (PUR)

• Footwear, Synthetic Leather,

Textile Applications, Bags,
Coating Applications, Foam,
• Prototyping, Automotive
Applications, Adhesives,
Electrical/Electronic
Applications
• Soft, Hydrolysis Resistant, Low Viscosity,
Good Flexibility, Abrasion Resistant,
Medium Hardness, Good Adhesion, Low
Temperature Flexibility, Good Toughness,
High Hardness
• Disadvantages
- Poor thermal capability
- Poor weatherability
- Attacked by most solvents
- Utilize toxic isocyanates
- Flammable
Phenol formaldehyde (PF)
• Phenolic laminates are made by impregnating one or
more layers of a base material such as
paper, fiberglass or cotton with phenolic resin and
laminating the resin-saturated base material under heat
and pressure.
• Paper phenolics are used in manufacturing electrical
components such as punch-through boards, in
household laminates, and in paper composite panels.
• Glass phenolics are particularly well suited for use in the
high speed bearing market.
• Phenolic micro-balloons are used for density control.
• Snooker balls as well as balls from many table-based
ball games are also made from phenol formaldehyde
resin. T
• he binding agent in normal (organic) brake pads, brake
shoes and clutch disks are phenolic resin. Synthetic
resin bonded paper, made from phenolic resin and
paper, is used to make countertops.
• Phenolic resins are also used for making exterior
plywood commonly known as WBP (Weather & boil
proof) Plywood because phenolic resins have no
melting point but only a decomposing point in the
temperature zone of 220 °C (428 °F) and above.
• Phenolic resin is used as
a binder in loudspeaker driver suspension
components which are made of cloth.
• Billiard balls are made from solid Phenolic resin.
• Sometimes people select phenolic resin parts
because their coefficient of thermal
expansion closely matches that of the aluminium
used for other parts of a system, as in early
computer systems[3] and Duramold.
• The Dutch forger Han van Meegeren mixed phenol
formaldehyde with his oil paints before baking the
finished canvas in order to fake the drying out of the
paint over the centuries.
Thank you