Plastic
Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic materials composed primarily of polymers. Their defining characteristic, plasticity, allows them to be molded, extruded, or pressed into a diverse range of solid forms. This adaptability, combined with a wide range of other properties such as low weight, durability, flexibility, chemical resistance, low toxicity, and low-cost production, has led to their widespread use around the world. While most plastics are produced from natural gas and petroleum, a growing minority are produced from renewable resources like polylactic acid. Between 1950 and 2017, 9.2 billion metric tons of plastic are estimated to have been made, with more than half of this amount being produced since 2004. In 2023 alone, preliminary figures indicate that over 400 million metric tons of plastic were produced worldwide. If global trends in plastic demand continue, it is projected that annual global plastic production will exceed 1.3 billion tons by ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Plastic Household Items
Plastics are a wide range of synthetic polymers, synthetic or Semisynthesis, semisynthetic materials composed primarily of Polymer, polymers. Their defining characteristic, Plasticity (physics), plasticity, allows them to be Injection moulding, molded, Extrusion, extruded, or Compression molding, pressed into a diverse range of solid forms. This adaptability, combined with a wide range of other properties such as low weight, durability, flexibility, chemical resistance, low toxicity, and low-cost production, has led to their widespread use around the world. While most plastics are produced from natural gas and petroleum, a growing minority are produced from renewable resources like polylactic acid. Between 1950 and 2017, 9.2 billion metric tons of plastic are estimated to have been made, with more than half of this amount being produced since 2004. In 2023 alone, preliminary figures indicate that over 400 million metric tons of plastic were produced worldwide. If global trends ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Marine Plastic Pollution
Marine plastic pollution is a type of Water pollution, marine pollution by Plastic pollution, plastics, ranging in size from large original material such as bottles and bags, down to microplastics formed from the Fragmentation (cell biology), fragmentation of plastic material. Marine debris is mainly discarded human rubbish which floats on, or is suspended in the ocean. Eighty percent of marine debris is Marine debris#Nurdles and plastic bags, plastic. Microplastics and nanoplastics result from the breakdown or photodegradation of plastic waste in surface waters, rivers or oceans. Recently, scientists have uncovered nanoplastics in heavy snow, more specifically about 3,000 tons that cover Switzerland yearly. It is approximated that there is a stock of 86 million tons of plastic marine debris in the worldwide ocean as of the end of 2013, assuming that 1.4% of global plastics produced from 1950 to 2013 has entered the ocean and has accumulated there. Global consumption of plasti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Plastic Pollution
Plastic pollution is the accumulation of plastic objects and particles (e.g. plastic bottles, bags and microbeads) in the Earth's environment that adversely affects humans, wildlife and their habitat. Plastics that act as pollutants are categorized by size into micro-, meso-, or macro debris. Plastics are inexpensive and durable, making them very adaptable for different uses; as a result, manufacturers choose to use plastic over other materials. However, the chemical structure of most plastics renders them resistant to many natural processes of environmental degradation, degradation and as a result they are slow to degrade. Together, these two factors allow large volumes of plastic to enter the environment as mismanaged waste which persists in the ecosystem and travels throughout food webs. Plastic pollution can afflict land, waterways and oceans. It is estimated that 1.1 to 8.8'' ''million tonnes of plastic waste enters the ocean from coastal communities each year. It is ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Microplastics
Microplastics are "synthetic solid particles or polymeric matrices, with regular or irregular shape and with size ranging from 1 μm to 5 mm, of either primary or secondary manufacturing origin, which are insoluble in water." Microplastics are dangerous to human health and the environment because they contain harmful chemicals which leak into the air, water, and food. Microplastics cause pollution by entering natural ecosystems from a variety of sources, including cosmetics, clothing, construction, renovation, food packaging, and industrial processes. The term ''microplastics'' is used to differentiate from larger, non-microscopic plastic waste. Two classifications of microplastics are currently recognized. Primary microplastics include any plastic fragments or particles that are already 5.0 mm in size or less before entering the environment. These include microfibers from clothing, microbeads, plastic glitter and plastic pellets (also known as nurdles). Seconda ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Garbage Patch
A garbage patch is a gyre of marine debris particles caused by the effects of ocean currents and increasing plastic pollution by human populations. These human-caused collections of plastic and other debris are responsible for ecosystem and environmental problems that affect marine life, contaminate oceans with toxic chemicals, and contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Once waterborne, marine debris becomes mobile. Flotsam can be blown by the wind, or follow the flow of ocean currents, often ending up in the middle of oceanic gyres where currents are weakest. Within garbage patches, the waste is not compact, and although most of it is near the surface of the ocean, it can be found up to more than deep in the water. Patches contain plastics and debris in a range of sizes from microplastics and small scale plastic pellet pollution, to large objects such as fishing nets and consumer goods and appliances lost from flood and shipping loss. Garbage patches grow because of widesp ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Extrusion
Extrusion is a process used to create objects of a fixed cross section (geometry), cross-sectional profile by pushing material through a Die (manufacturing), die of the desired cross-section. Its two main advantages over other manufacturing processes are its ability to create very complex cross-sections; and to work materials that are brittle, because the material encounters only compressive stress, compressive and shear stress, shear stresses. It also creates excellent surface finish and gives considerable freedom of form in the design process. Drawing (manufacturing), Drawing is a similar process, using the tensile strength of the material to pull it through the die. It limits the amount of change that can be performed in one step, so it is limited to simpler shapes, and multiple stages are usually needed. Drawing is the main way to produce wire. Metal Bar stock, bars and tube (fluid conveyance), tubes are also often drawn. Extrusion may be continuous (theoretically producin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bakelite
Bakelite ( ), formally , is a thermosetting polymer, thermosetting phenol formaldehyde resin, formed from a condensation reaction of phenol with formaldehyde. The first plastic made from synthetic components, it was developed by Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland in Yonkers, New York, in 1907, and patented on December 7, 1909. Bakelite was one of the first plastic-like materials to be introduced into the modern world and was popular because it could be Molding (process), molded and then hardened into any shape. Because of its electrical nonconductor, nonconductivity and heat-resistant properties, it became a great commercial success. It was used in electrical insulators, radio and telephone casings, and such diverse products as kitchenware, jewelry, pipe stems, children's toys, and firearms. The retro appeal of old Bakelite products has made them collectible. The creation of a synthetic plastic was revolutionary for the chemical industry, which at the time made most of its income f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Semisynthesis
Semisynthesis, or partial chemical synthesis, is a type of chemical synthesis that uses chemical compounds isolated from natural sources (such as microbiology, microbial cell cultures or plant material) as the starting materials to produce novel compounds with distinct chemical and medicinal properties. The novel compounds generally have a high molecular weight or a complex molecular structure, more so than those produced by total synthesis from simple starting materials. Semisynthesis is a means of preparing many medicines more cheaply than by total synthesis since fewer chemical steps are necessary. Drugs derived from natural sources are commonly produced either by isolation from their natural source or, as described here, through semisynthesis of an isolated agent. From the perspective of chemical synthesis, living organisms act as highly efficient chemical factories, capable of producing structurally complex compounds through biosynthesis. In contrast, engineered chemical s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Polymer Physics
Polymer physics is the field of physics that studies polymers, their fluctuations, mechanical properties, as well as the kinetics of reactions involving degradation of polymers and polymerisation of monomers.P. Flory, ''Principles of Polymer Chemistry'', Cornell University Press, 1953. .Pierre Gilles De Gennes, ''Scaling Concepts in Polymer Physics'' CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London, 1979M. Doi and S. F. Edwards, ''The Theory of Polymer Dynamics'' Oxford University Inc NY, 1986 While it focuses on the perspective of condensed matter physics, polymer physics was originally a branch of statistical physics. Polymer physics and polymer chemistry are also related to the field of polymer science, which is considered to be the applicative part of polymers. Polymers are large molecules and thus are very complicated for solving using a deterministic method. Yet, statistical approaches can yield results and are often pertinent, since large polymers (i.e., polymers with many ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Herman Francis Mark
Herman Francis Mark (born Hermann Franz Mark; May 3, 1895, Vienna – April 6, 1992, Austin, Texas) was an Austrian-American chemist regarded for his contributions to the development of polymer science. Mark's X-ray diffraction work on the molecular structure of fibers provided important evidence for the macromolecular theory of polymer structure. Together with Houwink he formulated an equation, now called the Mark–Houwink or Mark–Houwink–Sakurada equation, describing the dependence of the intrinsic viscosity of a polymer on its relative molecular mass (molecular weight). He was a long-time faculty at Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. In 1946, he established the '' Journal of Polymer Science''. Biography Early life Mark was born in Vienna in 1895, the son of Hermann Carl Mark, a physician, and Lili Mueller. Mark's father was Jewish, but converted to Christianity (Lutheran Church) upon marriage. Several early stimuli apparently steered Herman Mark to science. He was ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Polymer Chemistry
Polymer chemistry is a sub-discipline of chemistry that focuses on the structures, chemical synthesis, and chemical and physical properties of polymers and macromolecules. The principles and methods used within polymer chemistry are also applicable through a wide range of other chemistry sub-disciplines like organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, and physical chemistry. Many materials have polymeric structures, from fully inorganic metals and ceramics to DNA and other biological molecules. However, polymer chemistry is typically related to synthetic and organic compositions. Synthetic polymers are ubiquitous in commercial materials and products in everyday use, such as plastics, and rubbers, and are major components of composite materials. Polymer chemistry can also be included in the broader fields of polymer science or even nanotechnology, both of which can be described as encompassing polymer physics and polymer engineering.Hans-Heinrich Moretto, Manfred Schulz ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |