Polymer

Chain molecules if not
– fully stretched or by force applied at the ends or
– constrained in a channel
are not in machine phase.

Mechanosynthesis of chain molecules may be more challenging than
Mechanosynthesis of chain crystolecules.
That is due to chain molecules being floppy and harder to constraint in position.
If chain molecules are to be released after mechanosynthesis into a liquid phase space outside machine phase,
then they need to be funneled out through some kind of valve like acting pores.
Related: Synthesis of food

CONs / disadvantages

Cain molecules can't make up stiff nanostructures.
The base of gemstone metamaterial technology.
See: Stiffness, Gem-gum

Radiation:
Chain molecules have the disadvantage of being susceptible
to even slightly hard radiation (UVA, UVB).

Chain molecules tend to be limited in thermal resilience.
Thus leaving them in a system or deliberate inclusion of them into a system can and will
constrain the systems maximal performance characteristics.
See: Consistent design for external limiting factors

PROs / advantages

Due to providing

• a lot of degrees of freedom (DOFs) in a compact volume and
• retained control over these DOFs as in chain molecule stretchability (unlike in liquids)

Chain molecules might be advantageous for high density safe entropic energy storages.
That is energy storage that freze rather than explode when damaged.
See: entropomechanical conversion

From fossiles & biomatter to polymers

There is a huge and quite interesting DAG network of processing steps. (DAG … directed acyclic graph)
Interesting is to track the volumes involved.
Related: Chemical synthesis

(wiki-TODO: include chart here)

About mechanosynthesis of polymers

Availability of piezomechanosynthesis will change everything.

• many newly accessible structures
• quick accessability – just draw up the structure for a wide range of structures (but still not all!)
• 100% yield – 0% waste

Question is though in how far polymers will still needed then given
availability of emulated elasticity wich can perfoms better than polymers in nearly all regards.
Like e.g. toughness, tuneability, heat resistence, UV stability.

List of known existing polymers (clearly incomplete)

Bioplastics (not necessarily well biodegradable)

• PLA … polylactic acid – made from biomatter
• PHA … polyhudroxyalkanoates – [1]
• CA … cellulose acetate

Elastic plastics

• TPU … thermoplastic polyurethane

PU is usually a non-meltable duroplast.
E.g. hardened by two component mixture.
Thus the T in TPU.

Ultra low melting plastics

• PCL … low melting plastic used in medicine and early 3D printer prototypes

Water dissolvable plastics

• PVA … water soluble plastic related to non-toxic wood glue - petrol made but biodegradable
• PEI' … polyethylenimine [2]

Acetone dissolvable plastic that stink when heated

• HIPS … cheap and brittle
• ABS … LEGO
• ASA … more UV resillient

Highly transparent plastics

• PMMA (aka plexiglass)
• PET … (common bottleplastic)
• PETG … glycol modifies PET

PET is element of the class of polyesters [3]
While PET is a thermoplast there are also non-meltable duroplast polyeters.
Cured by hardener.

Self lubricating / tough plastics

Cheap:

• HDPE … high density polyerhylene – detergent bottles
• LDPE … low density polyethylene – plastic bags

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Less cheap:

• UHMWPE (dyneema) … [4] – ropes
• POM (delrin) … polyoxymethylene – plastic gears, lubricating spacess
• PA (nylon) … polyamides same backbone as natural proteins – lawnmower strings
• PC … polycarbonates [5]
• PTFE (teflon) … [6] – pan coatings, tubes

High performance polymers (typically include carbon rings)

• PEEK … e.g. used as heat-break in 3D printer hot ends
• PEKK
• PEI … polyetherimide – [7] e.g. used as 3D printer printbed coating
• used as 3D priner heatbed coating
• Aramid (kevlar) – [8]
• Polyimide (kapton) – seen on spacecraft, UHV systems, 3D printer heatbeds [9]

Misc

• PVC … polyvinylchloride – troublesome when burnt thus faded out except for e.g. orange ground pipes

Polycarbonates with small linkers:

• PPC … polypropylene carbonate [10]
• PEC … polyethylene carbonate – rare but available commercially empowermaterials
• polymethylene carbonate??

Compositon wise this is almost polymerized carbon dioxide.
Could this be used as CO₂ sink?

Related

• Inorganic polymer
• Synthesis of food
• Entropomechanical converter
• Foldamers
• De-novo protein engineering
• Chemical synthesis
• Emulated elasticity