What is Polymer Science and Engineering? - Jinju Eom

<What is Polymer Science and Engineering?>

    Jinju Eom          

    

 My major is Polymer science and engineering that most people do not know. I understand because even I had not known this kind of study before I submitted the application to my university in Korea. Actually, polymers are one of the big parts of our lives. They are very close to our lives so it is easy to find them everywhere. 

 There are roughly three kinds of materials in the world: metal, ceramic, polymer. Among them, polymer is commonly called ‘Plastic’. Maybe you have heard of this term at least once. Academically, polymer is a substance that has over 10000 mw with repeating units bonded covalently together in one molecular. It sounds difficult but DNA, protein and carbohydrates also can be categorized to the polymer because they have certain repeating structure in one molecular. Polymers have less strength and durable can be easily processed compared to ceramics and metals so they can be widely used in our lives.

 Generally, polymers come from the patrol energy. Polymers are synthesized by using basic materials from the chemicals which have simple structures such as ethylene gas. We can easily get simple structured chemicals from the patrol energy so until now patrol energy is very important source to synthesize polymers.

There are roughly two kinds of polymers; one is thermoplastic which can be melted when heated and the other is thermosetting plastic, so called resin, which cannot be melted but degraded. Thermoplastic can be remolded by heating again, but thermosetting plastic can be recycled by using another way. Therefore we usually collect plastics separately because they have to be treated in different way. There is a triangle with number on every plastic goods.

The used plastics which cannot be recycled are buried or burned. It takes over 100 years to be degraded naturally when buried and the toxic chemical such as dioxane and hydrogen cyanide come out when burned. These cause serious soil and air pollution.

 Therefore, one of the important studies in polymer field is that finding new polymer which can be synthesized eco-friendly and also bio-degradable. For example, PHB(Polyhydroxybutyrate) is synthesized by certain bacteria, Recombinant E. Coli, and we can adjust this polymer’s properties such as strength by introducing other polymers. Also, this biopolymer is broken down into sugars and fatty acids and finally they become carbon dioxide and water so they can be used in our bodies as medical devices such as bioresorbable surgical suture (string) and biodegradable screw & plates for cartilage and bone fixation.

  In addition to biopolymer, there are many ongoing studies in the field such as semi-conductor and display industries, 3D-printer and engineering plastics. I am going to choose one of these fields and do a master’s degree in it.