" 'Have you ever seen a polypropylene molecule?' a plastics enthusiast once asked me. 'It's one of the most beautiful things you've ever seen. It's like looking at a cathedral that goes on and on for miles.' "(Where did this woman find someone who thinks like this? Please tell that no one reading this blog would think to compare a PP molecule to a cathedral.)
Whether a polymer is natural or synthetic, chances are its backbone is composed of carbon, a strong, stable, glad-handing atom that is ideally suited to forming molecular bonds. Other elements—typically oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen—frequently join that carbon spine, and the choice and arrangement of those atoms produces specific varieties of polymers. Bring chlorine into that molecular conga line, and you can get polyvinyl chloride, otherwise known as vinyl; tag on fluorine, and you can wind up with that slick nonstick material Teflon."I can overlook the flowery language just fine, as this was obviously aimed at the general public, but sorry to say, PVC does not have the chlorine in the conga line - it's "tagged" onto the side to put it in Freinkelese. Oh, and as for that fluorine that is indeed tagged on, you actually need 4 of them (not one) for every monomer molecule. (Even if you take the IUPAC approach and consider that the repeat unit is -CF2-, you still have to tag on 2 fluorines to each one.)
These are just from the first page of the excerpt. Wow. One loony-tune, and two factually wrong statements. Pretty incredible ratio, huh? I'm done.