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Topic: What Polymer Did I Obtain?  (Read 14629 times)

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Offline wildfyr

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Re: What Polymer Did I Obtain?
« Reply #15 on: November 06, 2017, 11:01:47 AM »
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Offline Enthalpy

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Re: What Polymer Did I Obtain?
« Reply #16 on: November 06, 2017, 12:30:55 PM »
I've seen Ca(OH)2 be used to dehydrochlorinate (-HCl) trichloroethane to obtain vinylidene chloride. That has a great double bond there to polymerize into a chlorinated polyethylene. I'm sure NaOH would have a similar effect as Ca(OH)2 if not act even better.

That would be reasonable, but I'm sure the polymer didn't contain chlorine. As I burned it, it smelled like a paraffin, not like PVC. Meanwhile I know that some polymers containing oxygen, for instance for hot glue guns, also produce the flame and odour of a paraffin.
Polyketone is not the only candidate as a polymer made of C, H, O. Alcohol and ether functions too would at least account the number of O and H from the reactants.

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