What is a polymer? Name the natural polymer of which cotton is made.
Answers
Answer:
Examples of naturally occurring polymers are silk, wool, DNA, cellulose and proteins. In our previous section on network polymers, we mentioned vulcanized rubber and pectin. Vulcanized rubber is a synthetic (man-made) polymer, while pectin is an example of a natural polymer.
Answer:
A polymer is a substance composed of macromolecules. A macromolecule is a molecule of high relative molecular mass, the structure of which essentially comprises the multiple repetition of units derived, actually or conceptually, from molecules of low relative molecular mass. ( This definition given by IUPAC).
Whereas natural polymers are polymer which occur from natural sources like plants. For example, rubber, cotton etc are natural fibers.
Cotton is a natural fiber made up of cellulose. As cellulose is also a polymer which is made up of large number of small glucose units that are repeatedly attached to each other. All the plants have walls composed of cellulose.