Plastics

At the beginning of the 20th century, researchers discovered that plastics are materials that are formed from identical small molecules by reacting to form large molecules in chain or network form. The small molecules are called monomers (mono=one) and the large molecules (plastics) are called polymers (poly=many), or macromolecules The basic structure of a polymer always consists partly of carbon atoms to which other elements are bonded. The simplest monomer is polyethylene, consisting of two carbon atoms and 4 hydrogen atoms.