Polymers includes various kinds of materials inside it. And these materials constitute a very big market in manufacturing industry. So the production of these polymer materials has very big market. There are two types of production of polymers in industry. Step polymerization is one out of two polymerization processes. Other one is addition polymerization. In here we will summarize the step polymerization process and its process parameters.
It has actually nearly same logic with addition polymerization. But there are some kinds of difference in process itself. In step polymerization, two of monomers are brought together to obtain a new mer. All these new mers are brougth together again and again at each step. All these steps are called as n1, n2, n3… And with the sufficient time and steps, long chained polymers are obtained. Also it depends on the numer steps, that number of steps also depend on time.
Unlike addition polymerization, there can be byproducts occured. In such polymerization processes, water(H2O) is obtained as byproduct. That water comes with condensation, which gives an another name to this polymerization process ‘condensation polymerization’. In some step polymerization processes, ammonia(NH3) can be also produced as byproduct.
In step polymerization or condensation polymerization, both thermplastics and thermosettings are produced. In more specific; nylon 6-6, polycarbonate polymers are the examples of thermoplastic polymers that are produced with step polymerization. Phenol formaldehyde and urea formaldehyde are the examples of thermosetting polymers that produced with step polymerization.
Step or condensation polymerization process can be explained briefly like above. Do not forget to leave your comments and questions about ‘step polymerization process’ below. Your feedback is very important for us.
