PAPER Topics

Start of Term Paper
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 polymer ....

Middle of Term Paper
... which continues to this day. Cellulose derivatives are forms of cellulose, a polymer found in wood, cotton, and paper, which have been chemically altered. Scientists first started to make them in the second half of the nineteenth century, long before we really even knew what a polymer was. The very first came about when a scientist reacted cellulose, in the form of cotton, with nitric acid. The result was cellulose nitrate. Cellulose nitrate, also called gun cotton, turned out to be a powerful explosive. It soon replaced common gunpowder as the explosive charge in the ammunition for rifles and artillery. Cellulose nitrate was also used to ...