How is plastic made?
Answers:
Plastics are polymers: long chains of atoms bonded to one another. These chains are made up of many repeating molecular units, or "monomers". The vast majority of plastics are composed of polymers of carbon alone or with oxygen, nitrogen, chlorine or sulfur in the backbone. (Some of commercial interest are silicon based.) The backbone is that part of the chain on the main "path" linking the multitude of monomer units together. To customize the properties of a plastic, different molecular groups "hang" from the backbone (usually they are "hung" as part of the monomers before linking monomers together to form the polymer chain). This customization by pendant groups has allowed plastics to become such an indispensable part of twenty first-century life by fine tuning the properties of the polymer.
People experimented with plastics based on natural polymers for centuries. In the nineteenth century they discovered plastics based on chemically modified natural polymers: Charles Goodyear discovered vulcanization of rubber (1839) and Alexander Parkes discovered cellulose-based plastics in the 1860s. The first plastic based on a synthetic polymer was called Bakelite and was created by Leo Hendrik Baekeland in 1907.
from petrochemicals ( you really need to check out wikopedia or you can wait for a cribber to do it for you ) ( AND LO AND BEHOLD ONE APPEARS !! )
the problem is they don't read what they crib or they would notice that it's the wrong information
( in this case you got the definition not the manufacturing process )
From chemicals and oil, certain mixtures.
Are we talking Thermoset or Thermo plastics ?
I didn't want to cut and paste the whole article here, but you can find the process at this link: http://www.plasticsresource.com/s_plasti.
Very informative actually, take a look! :)
Great question, I learned something new also.
Plastic is a by product of oil.
You can also make plastic out of other things some are very dangerous, so i won't say what they are.
I'm guessing this is a question from school so the links below should help you..
Plastics are generally made from Ethane, Methane, Propane and Butane liquids. These are separated directly from crude oil flashing. They are processed to form Ethanol, Methanol, Propylene, Butadiene etc. From this process they are polimerised into plastic pellets somehow, with heat and catalysts etc. When heated and treated with additives, these pellets can be either injection moulded or formed into whatever plastic shapes we need. I work in a refinery/chemical complex but don't really know what goes on past my own plant!
step 1:
take 1 cup of crude oil use heat to its boiling point (fractional distillation) to seperate it into its hydrocarbon fractions.
Step 2:
Take the alkanes and heat to 500 degrees C with a catalysi such as aluminium oxide (catalytic cracking) to break it into smaller alkanes and alkenes.
Step 3:
You then take the alkene and add a sprinkle of catalyist to break open the double bond the this leaves space on each carbon from the double bond to join this alkene to another alkene.
Step 4:
leave to cool on a rack for 1 hour and enjoy!
seriously this is how you make plastic. you end up with a chain of monomers called a polymer. the Alkene that you use will determine what plastic you end up with. this is why there are so many types of plastic with different properties.
They are made by joining together small molecules "monomers" to form a plastic "polymer". There are so many types of monomer and methods of joining them together that whole books have been written on polymer synthesis.
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