Bonds energy breaks polymer chain

Once a rubberband is stretched beyond its elastic region, it becomes much harder to stretch and soon breaks. At this point, the polymer chains are linear and more energy must be applied to slide chains past one another and break bonds. Thus, determining the energy required to break the material requires a different type of simulation. 

It is interesting to note that methane, ethane, and ethylene are all gases hexane, octane, and nonane are all liquids (at room conditions) while low molecular weight PE is a waxy solid. This trend is primarily due to an increase in the mass per molecule and to an increase in the London forces per polymer chain. The London force interaction between methylene units is about 8 kcal/mol. Thus, for methane molecules the attractive forces are 8 kJ/mol for octane it is 64 kJ/mol and for PE with 1000 ethylene (or 2000 methylenes) it is 2000 methylene units X 8 kJ/mol per methylene unit = 16,000 kJ/mol, which is well sufficient to make PE a solid and to break backbone bonds before it boils. (Polymers do not boil because the energy necessary to make a chain volatile is greater than the primary backbone bond energy.)... 

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