Aging of polymers

R.O. Jonas, B.A.G. Parsons and R. Wilkinson, Proceedings Inti Conference on Chemical and Physical Phenomena in the Ageing of Polymers, Prague (1988), p. 84. 

S. T. I. Mossman and P. J. T. Morris, eds. The Development of Plastics. London Royal Society of Chemistry, 1994. Source for Carothers inaugurating the age of polymers. 

Contents 1. Introduction, Historical Overview and Terminology Associated with the Degradation and Ageing of Polymers 452... 

TERMINOLOGY ASSOCIATED WITH THE DEGRADATION AND AGEING OF POLYMERS... 

The term ageing of polymers is usually reserved for long-term changes in properties of polymers exposed to weathering conditions. It may involve any of the above processes and include physical processes of polymer recrystallization and denaturation of, for example, protein structure in biopolymer chemistry. The term corrosion, used essentially for the deterioration (ageing) of metal... 

The most general and specific aspect of thermal aging of polymer networks is the existence of a postcuring effect, often predominant in the early time of exposure (Fig. 14.19). The curves exhibit a maximum (for the ultimate stress of unsaturated polyesters, P can increase by more... 

In spite of Baekeland s success, it was another two decades before the Age of Polymers can really be said to have been born. The 1920s and 1930s saw the invention and/or commercialization of a number of new polymeric products ("plastics") that most consumers now consider to he essential chemicals in their lives. These products include the urea formaldehyde plastics (1923), polyvinyl chloride (PVC 1926), polystyrene (1929), nylon (1930), polymethylmethacrylate (acrylics 1931), polyethylene (1933), the melamine plastics (1933), polyvinylidene chloride (Saran 1933), polyvinyl acetate (PVA 1937), and tetrafluoroethylene (Teflon 1938). 

H. Mark, "Coming to an age of polymers in science and technology, History of Polymer Science and Technology, ed. by R. B. Seymour (New York and Basel Marcel Dekker, 1982), 1-9, on 5. 

Monakov YB, Sabirov ZM, Zaikov GE (2002) Aging of Polymers, Polymer Blends and Polymer Composites. Nova Science, Hauppauge, NY 1 237 and references therein... 

R. Campion, Model Test oils based on Solubility Parameters for Artificial Ageing of Polymers, Proc. of the Conference on Polymer Testing, 1996, Shawberry, Sept. 9, 1996, RAPRA, Shrewsbury, UK, 1996, pp. 1.5. 

In the sixties, plastics were being produced in amounts of hundreds of millions of tons, the trends of world production were increasing and the prospects of future development were very optimistic. This era, roughly up to the first oil crisis, is sometimes regarded as the golden age of polymer chemistry. 

While living organisms have made polymers like cotton, silk, wool, and latex rubber for thousands of years, the first laboratory synthesis of a polymer occurred only in the late 1800s. Imagine that you live in the 1880s, before society entered what some chemists refer to as the "Age of Polymers." Write a short story describing how your life would differ from its present form because of the absence of synthetic polymers. 

Hutchinson, J.M. Physical aging of polymers. Prog. Polym. Sci., 20, 703, 1995. 

Several of the typical factors effecting service life or ageing of polymers in other applications can be eliminated on the basis that either by themselves or in combination they appear to cause less damage than... 

---