Plastic is a term that covers a range of synthetic or semisynthetic polymerization products. They are composed of organic condensation or addition polymers and may contain other substances to improve performance or economics. There are few natural polymers generally considered to be "plastics". Plastics can be formed into objects or films or fibers. Their name is derived from the fact that many are malleable, having the property of plasticity. Plastics are designed with immense variation in properties such as heat tolerance, hardness, ...

Including:

Plastic - Natural polymers Plastic - Cellulose-based plastics: celluloid and rayon Plastic - Bakelite phenolic Plastic - Polystyrene and PVC Plastic - Nylon Plastic - Synthetic rubber Plastic - Plastics explosion: acrylic polyethylene etc. Plastic - The environment
Plastic - Biodegradable Plastics
Plastic - Price and the future Plastic - Common plastics and their typical uses Plastic - Special purpose plastics

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See also:

Plasticizer, Plasticizer - Plasticizers for plastics, Plasticizer - Plasticizers for concrete production

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Other plastics emerged in the prewar period, though some would not come into widespread use until after the war. By 1936, American, British, and German companies were producing polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), better known as "acrylic". Although acrylics are now well known for their use in paints and synthetic fibers, such as "fake furs", in their bulk form they are actually very hard and more transparent than glass, and are sold as glass replacements under trade names such as "Plexiglas" and "Lucite". Plexiglas was used to build aircraft canopies durin ...

See also:

Plastic, Plastic - Natural polymers, Plastic - Cellulose-based plastics: celluloid and rayon, Plastic - Bakelite phenolic, Plastic - Polystyrene and PVC, Plastic - Nylon, Plastic - Synthetic rubber, Plastic - Plastics explosion: acrylic, polyethylene, etc., Plastic - The environment, Plastic - Biodegradable Plastics, Plastic - Price and the future, Plastic - Common plastics and their typical uses, Plastic - Special purpose plastics

Read more here: » Plastic: Encyclopedia II - Plastic - Plastics explosion: acrylic, polyethylene, etc.

The American Plastics Council (APC) is a major trade association for the U.S. plastics industry. Through a variety of outreach efforts, APC works to promote the benefits of plastics and the plastics industry. APC is comprised of 22 of the leading resin manufacturers, plus one affiliated trade association representing the vinyl industry. APC's membership represents more than 80 percent of th

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Plastic surgery is a general term for operative manual and instrumental treatment which is performed for functional or aesthetic reasons. The word "plastic" derives from the Greek plastikos meaning to mould or to shape; its use here is not connected with modern plastics. The principal areas of plastic surgery include two broad fields. Reconstructive surgery, including microsurgery, focuses on undoing or masking the destructive effects of trauma, surgery or disease. Reconstructive surgery may include closing ...

Including:

Plastic surgery - History Plastic surgery - Reconstructive surgery Plastic surgery - Cosmetic surgery Plastic surgery - Related disciplines Plastic surgery - Addiction to cosmetic surgery

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Brain plasticity refers to the changes that occur in the organisation of the brain, and in particular changes that occur to the location of specific information processing functions, as a result of the effect of experience. The term cortical plasticity is more commonly used, however there is no particular restriction of the phenomenon to the cortex. A common and surprising consequence of plasticity is that the location of a given funct ...

Including:

Plasticity brain - Brain plasticity and cortical maps Plasticity brain - Brain plasticity during operation of brain-machine interfaces

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A bottle is a small container with a neck that is narrower than the body and a "mouth." Bottles are often made of glass, plastic or aluminum, and typically used to store liquids. e.g. water, milk, soft drinks, beer, wine, oil for cooking and as fuel, medicine, liquid soap, shampoo, ink, etc. For some bottles a deposit is paid, which is returned after returning the bottle to the retailer. For other glass bottles there is often separate garbage collection for recycling. A device used to close ...

Including:

Bottle - Use for wine Bottle - Codd-neck bottles Bottle - Plastic bottles

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A bag is a container that is usually used for storing or holding something. Bags are non-rigid, normally made of paper, cloth, thin plastic or some other flexible material. A bag may have one or two handles, or neither of these. A bag may be closable by a zipper, etc., or simply by folding (e.g. in the case of a paper bag). Sometimes a money bag or travel bag has a lock. Sachets are fabric bags that are filled with potpourri and tied off with ribbons. Bags vary from small ones, like purses (e.g. as an alternative to putting personal things in pockets of clothing) to large ...

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Whipping is the tying of several turns of twine around the end of a rope to prevent it from unravelling. It is not to be confused with splicing, which is a method of joining two ropes together, or joining one rope to itself, usually to form an eye or loop. Whipped rope - Whipping natural fiber rope. Whipping usually starts inside and works towards the end of the rope. The twine is first laid along the rope end in the form of an elongated double S that lies along the valley between one strand ...

Including:

Whipped rope - Whipping natural fiber rope Whipped rope - Whipping plastic fiber rope

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In engineering, buckling is a failure mode of a structural member characterised by a failure to react to the bending moment generated by a compressive load. Buckling - Buckling in columns. The ratio of the length of a column to the least radius of gyration of its cross section is called the slenderness ratio (usually expressed with the Greek letter lambda - λ). This ratio affords a means of classifying columns. All the following are approximate values used for convenience. A short steel ...

Including:

Buckling - Buckling in columns Buckling - Buckling of surface materials Buckling - Local Buckling Buckling - Lateral-Torsional Buckling Buckling - Plastic Buckling

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Building material is any material which is used for a construction purpose. Just about every type of available material has been used at one time or another for creating various human and animal homes, structures, and technologies. This reference deals with habitat structures including homes. For other kinds of building materials, see Hardware, Biology, Star formation. Building material - Human building materials. Living spaces and their related structures have been created using myriad materials, fr ...

Including:

Building material - Human building materials
Building material - Mud stone and brush Building material - Wood Building material - Brick Building material - Concrete Building material - Ice Building material - Metal Building material - Plastic Building material - New materials and techniques

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Cold Work is a quality imparted on a material as a result of plastic deformation at low to moderate temperatures (typically <0.5 Tm). Such deformation increases the concentration of dislocations which may subsequently form low-angle grain boundaries surrounding sub-grains. Cold work generally results in a higher yield strength as a result of the increased number of dislocations and the Hall-Petch effect of the sub-grains. However, there is a simultaneous decrease in the ductility. The effects of cold working may be removed by annealing the material at high temperatures where recovery and r ...

Including:

Cold work - Theory
Cold work - Elastic and Plastic Deformation Cold work - Dislocations and Lattice Strain Fields Cold work - Increase of dislocations and Cold Work Cold work - Example

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Other plastics emerged in the prewar period, though some would not come into widespread use until after the war. By 1936, American, British, and German companies were producing polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), better known as "acrylic". Although acrylics are now well known for their use in paints and synthetic fibers, such as "fake furs", in their bulk form they are actually very hard and more transparent than glass, and are sold as glass replacements under trade names such as "Plexiglas" and "Lucite". Plexiglas was used to build aircraft canopies during ...

See also:

Plastic, Plastic - Natural polymers, Plastic - Cellulose-based plastics: celluloid and rayon, Plastic - Bakelite phenolic, Plastic - Polystyrene and PVC, Plastic - Nylon, Plastic - Synthetic rubber, Plastic - Plastics explosion: acrylic polyethylene etc., Plastic - The environment, Plastic - Biodegradable Plastics, Plastic - Price and the future, Plastic - Common plastics and their typical uses, Plastic - Special purpose plastics

Read more here: » Plastic: Encyclopedia II - Plastic - Plastics explosion: acrylic polyethylene etc.

Corn, or maize, has a number of uses. Besides being used for human and livestock consumption, corn can be used to produce ethanol, as a biomass fuel source, and in corn construction. According to the Michigan Department of Agriculture, "corn can be made into fuel, abrasives, solvents, charcoal, animal feed, bedding for animals, insulation, adhesives, and more. The kernel is used as oil, bran, starch, glutamates, animal feed, and solvents. The silk is combined with other parts of the corn plant to be used as part of anima ...

Including:

Corn construction - History Corn construction - Husks Corn construction - Corncobs Corn construction - Cornstarch Corn construction - Corn kernel buning stoves and furnaces Corn construction - Housing materials Corn construction - Plastics

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All Goodyear had done with vulcanization was improve the properties of a natural polymer. The next logical step was to use a natural polymer, cellulose, as the basis for a new material. Inventors were particularly interested in developing synthetic substitutes for those natural materials that were expensive and in short supply, since that meant a profitable market to exploit. Ivory was a particularly attractive target for a synthetic replacement. An Englishman from Birmingham named Alexander Parkes developed a "synthetic ivory" ...

See also:

Plastic, Plastic - Natural polymers, Plastic - Cellulose-based plastics: celluloid and rayon, Plastic - Bakelite phenolic, Plastic - Polystyrene and PVC, Plastic - Nylon, Plastic - Synthetic rubber, Plastic - Plastics explosion: acrylic polyethylene etc., Plastic - The environment, Plastic - Biodegradable Plastics, Plastic - Price and the future, Plastic - Common plastics and their typical uses, Plastic - Special purpose plastics

Read more here: » Plastic: Encyclopedia II - Plastic - Cellulose-based plastics: celluloid and rayon

The limitations of celluloid led to the next major advance, known as "phenolic" or "phenol-formaldehyde" plastics. A chemist named Leo Hendrik Baekeland, a Belgian-born American living in New York state, was searching for an insulating shellac to coat wires in electric motors and generators. Baekeland found that mixtures of phenol (C6H5OH) and formaldehyde (HCOH) formed a sticky mass when mixed together and heated, and the mass beca ...

See also:

Plastic, Plastic - Natural polymers, Plastic - Cellulose-based plastics: celluloid and rayon, Plastic - Bakelite phenolic, Plastic - Polystyrene and PVC, Plastic - Nylon, Plastic - Synthetic rubber, Plastic - Plastics explosion: acrylic polyethylene etc., Plastic - The environment, Plastic - Biodegradable Plastics, Plastic - Price and the future, Plastic - Common plastics and their typical uses, Plastic - Special purpose plastics

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After the First World War, improvements in chemical technology led to an explosion in new forms of plastics. Among the earliest examples in the wave of new plastics were "polystyrene" (PS) and "polyvinyl chloride" (PVC), developed by IG Farben of Germany. Polystyrene is a rigid, brittle plastic that is now used to make plastic model kits, disposable eating utensils, and similar knickknacks. It would also be the basis for one of the most popular "foamed" plastics, under the name "styrene foam" or "Styrofoam". Foam plastics can be synth ...

See also:

Plastic, Plastic - Natural polymers, Plastic - Cellulose-based plastics: celluloid and rayon, Plastic - Bakelite phenolic, Plastic - Polystyrene and PVC, Plastic - Nylon, Plastic - Synthetic rubber, Plastic - Plastics explosion: acrylic polyethylene etc., Plastic - The environment, Plastic - Biodegradable Plastics, Plastic - Price and the future, Plastic - Common plastics and their typical uses, Plastic - Special purpose plastics

Read more here: » Plastic: Encyclopedia II - Plastic - Polystyrene and PVC

One of the great appeals of plastics have been their low price as compared to other materials. However, in recent years the cost of plastics has been rising dramatically. The cause of the increase is the sharply rising cost of petroleum, the raw material that is chemically altered to form commercial plastics. As the cost of plastic hinges on the cost of petroleum, should petroleum prices continues to rise, so will the cost of plastic. In 2004, the higher price of plastic drove a numb ...

See also:

Plastic, Plastic - Natural polymers, Plastic - Cellulose-based plastics: celluloid and rayon, Plastic - Bakelite phenolic, Plastic - Polystyrene and PVC, Plastic - Nylon, Plastic - Synthetic rubber, Plastic - Plastics explosion: acrylic polyethylene etc., Plastic - The environment, Plastic - Biodegradable Plastics, Plastic - Price and the future, Plastic - Common plastics and their typical uses, Plastic - Special purpose plastics

Read more here: » Plastic: Encyclopedia II - Plastic - Price and the future

Although plastics have had a remarkable impact globally, it has become increasingly obvious that there is a price to be paid for their use. Plastics are almost too good, as they are durable and degrade very slowly. In some cases, burning plastic can release toxic fumes. Also, the manufacturing of plastics often creates large quantities of chemical pollutants, and requires use of the Earth's limited supply of fossil fuels. However, it should be noted that plastics only consume 4% of the world's oil production. Furthermore, it can be cl ...

See also:

Plastic, Plastic - Natural polymers, Plastic - Cellulose-based plastics: celluloid and rayon, Plastic - Bakelite phenolic, Plastic - Polystyrene and PVC, Plastic - Nylon, Plastic - Synthetic rubber, Plastic - Plastics explosion: acrylic polyethylene etc., Plastic - The environment, Plastic - Biodegradable Plastics, Plastic - Price and the future, Plastic - Common plastics and their typical uses, Plastic - Special purpose plastics

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When compared to glass or metallic materials, plastic poses some unique challenges from a recycling perspective. Chief among them is their low entropy of mixing, which is due to the high molecular weight of large polymer chains. Another way of stating this problem is that, since a macromolecule interacts with its environment along its entire length, its enthalpy of mixing is very, very large compared to that of a small organic molecule with a similar structure; thermal excitations are not often enough to drive such a huge molecule into solut ...

See also:

Plastic recycling, Plastic recycling - Obstacles, Plastic recycling - Alternative processes

Read more here: » Plastic recycling: Encyclopedia II - Plastic recycling - Obstacles