Polymer Science and Polymer Chemistry

Polymer chemists’ study large, complex molecules (polymers) that are enhance from many smaller (sometimes repeating) units. They study how the smaller building blocks (monomers) incorporate, and create useful materials with specific characteristics by manipulating the molecular structure of the monomers/polymers used, the composition of the monomer/polymer consolidation, and applying chemical and processing techniques that can, to a large extent, affect the properties of the final product. Polymer chemists are different within the chemistry community because their understanding of the relationship between structure and property spans from the molecular scale to the macroscopic scale.