How do monomers join together to make polymers?
Some polymers, called condensation polymers are formed by the elimination of water. Urea formaldehyde resins are typical of this. Other polymers form by combining with other monomers by braking the double bonds – an example would be polyethene which polymerises across the double bond of the ethene molecule. The former are generally endothermic reactions, we did this at atmospheric pressure, acid catalysed and heated. The latter are exothermic reactions, done under pressure with excess heat removal..
