Polymer chains building covalently bonded

For most commercial polymers, carbon and silicon are the two backbone building blocks, and they routinely form chains of like atoms. Generally three types of covalent bonds are associated with carbon in the production of commercial vinyl polymers, as shown in Fig. 2.5 the single, double, and triple carbon-to-carbon bonds. 

Staudinger rejected the idea that these substances were organic colloids. He hypothesized that the high molecular weight substances known as polymers were true macromolecules formed by covalent bonds. Staudinger s macromolecular theory stated that polymers consist of long chains in which the individual monomers (or building blocks) are connected with each other by normal covalent bonds. The... 

Polymers (plastics) consist of macromolecules, frequently in the form of large molecular chains in which the atoms are held together by covalent bonds, whereas the bonds between the different chains are much weaker. For this reason, chain molecules can be considered as the basic building units of a polymer. 

In 1998, supramolecular polymers with photocontrollable molecular weights were reported for the first time (Fig. 4.10).These are formed by the self-assembly of telechelic polymers terminated into UPy units. UPy can dimerize by quadruple H-bonding with high affinity of 2.2 x 10 M in chloroform), building up long chains. A chloroform solution of this polymer (42) behaves like a solution of a conventional covalently linked polymer. 

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