Young polymer

The above comments are only a superficial overview of the immense possibilities of these young polymer materials, which could be The Materials of the 21st Century . 

FIGURE 13-17 Experimental stress/strain plot for single crystals of polydiacetylene [redrawn from the data of C. Galiotis and R. J. Young, Polymer, 24, 1023 (1983)]. 

While the relatively young polymer industry was learning much from the modification of natural polymers, production figures were small. As the purely synthetic polymers came on stream, the range of valuable applications for plastic materials rapidly increased. Today, the annual mass of polymeric... 

Kim, Woo-Sik Byun, Kyung-Rock Lee, Dong-Ho Min, Kyung-Eun Park, Lee-Soon Seo, Kwan-Ho Kang, Inn-Kyu Park, Soo-Young, Polymer Journal (Tokyo, Japan), 2003,35,450-454. 

As PLA is a rather young polymer, many companies are developing applications. These are mainly focused on the field of packaging fresh food, but other applications are emerging. Processing PLA is possible on standard polymer equipment for the various process techniques. 

AJ Kinloch, RJ Young. Polymer Fracture. London Elsevier, 1983, p 128. 

In an ideal world, a chapter such as this would provide the reader with the ability to know how any chemical will interact with PLA. There are two possible ways of doing this. The first is to provide an overwhelming amount of detail over a large range of chemicals, allowing the experienced reader to extrapolate to their own area of interest. For a comparatively young polymer such as PLA, this is simply not possible. The second approach is to provide a perfect theoretical framework from which the reader can calculate whatever they require. No such framework exists. 

With a relatively young polymer such as PLA, it is possible to put a new product out into the marketplace with a potentially serious technical liability it might break unexpectedly in use. Over the years, end users for other polymers have learned by trial and (sometimes disastrous) error to avoid the problem, but thermodynamics can help us avoid the error by rational processes. The problem is that a plastic part in contact with a particular liquid might crack for no apparent reason. The crack will appear at a point of stress in the part, even though mechanical tests will have shown that the stresses pose no risk at all. This phenomenon is called environmental stress cracking (ESC). 

RJ. Young, Polymer single crystal fibres, in I.M. Ward (Ed.), Developments in Oriented Polymers—2, Applied Science, London, 1987. 

---