Early Synthetic Polymers

Early Synthetic Polymers Polymers have been around longer than we have. In fact, polymers are as old as life itself, as all life on earth is based on three types of polymers, namely DNA, RNA, and proteins. But this report is about some of the earliest synthetic polymers, that is, polymers made by humans, specifically, the cellulose derivatives. The very first synthetic polymer was of course leather, a modified natural polymer, an artificially crosslinked form …

…why modify it when you want to make fibers? Well you see, cellulose filaments, which make up cellulose fibers, have a fuzzy texture to them. But silk on the other hand has smooth filaments, which give silk fabric its shiny look. Once it was discovered that cellulose nitrate fibers were also smooth, and could be used to produce cloth with a silk-like sheen, cellulose derivatives were seen as a possible cheap replacement for expensive silk.