Crossword clues for monomer
The Collaborative International Dictionary
monomer \mon"o*mer\, n. (Chem.) The basic conceptual building unit of a polymer; a molecule of low molecular weight which may combine with other molecules to form a molecule in a chain or branched form having high molecular weight; as, amino acids are the monomer units which are combined to form proteins; vinylic plastics are formed from monomers having a vinyl group.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
n. (context chemistry English) A relatively small molecule which can be covalently bonded to other monomers to form a polymer.
WordNet
n. a simple compound whose molecules can join together to form polymers
Wikipedia
A monomer (mono-, "one" + -mer, "part") is a molecule that may bind chemically or supramolecularly to other molecules to form a ( supramolecular) polymer. The process by which monomers combine end to end to form a polymer is called polymerization. Molecules made of a small number of monomer units (up to a few dozen) are called oligomers. The term "monomeric protein" may also be used to describe one of the proteins making up a multiprotein complex.
Industrial polymers:
- Ethylene gas (HC=CH) is the precursor monomer for polyethylene
- Other modified ethylene molecules, such as tetrafluoroethylene (FC=CF) which leads to Teflon, vinyl chloride (HC=CHCl) which leads to PVC, styrene (CHCH=CH) which leads to polystyrene, etc.
- Epoxide monomers may be cross linked with themselves, or with the addition of a co-reactant, to form epoxy
- BPA is the monomer precursor for polycarbonate
- Many more
Biopolymer groupings, and the types of monomers that create them:
- For lipids (Diglycerides, triglycerides)*, the monomers are glycerol and fatty acids.
- For proteins (Polypeptides), the monomers are amino acids.
- For Nucleic acids (DNA/RNA), the monomers are nucleotides which is made of a pentose sugar, a nitrogenous base and a phosphate group.
- For carbohydrates (Polysaccharides specifically and disaccharides—depends), the monomers are monosaccharides.
*Diglycerides and triglycerides are made by dehydration synthesis from smaller molecules; this is not the same kind of end-to-end linking of similar monomers that qualifies as polymerization. Therefore, diglycerides and triglycerides are an exception to the term polymer.
Examples: The most common natural monomer is glucose, which is linked by glycosidic bonds into polymers such as cellulose, starch, and glycogen. Most often the term monomer refers to the organic molecules which form synthetic polymers, such as vinyl chloride, which is used to produce the polymer polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
Usage examples of "monomer".
The blast circle then extended to the vinyl acetate monomer bottles and the stardust, the plastic material of the bottles vaporizing, the liquid, then atomizing and vaporizing as well, taking the aerosol stardust with it.
The pressure pulse blew off the warhead skin, and the cloud grew, a sphere of high pressure, high-temperature gases, the ethylene gas mixing with the vinyl acetate monomer in the high temperatures and reacting to form a vinyl-acetate ethylene copolymer--a liquid latex glue--which completed its reaction, using up the ethylene and vinyl acetate and stardust, the gas cloud finally cooling and changing from a sphere to a teardrop shape as it fell toward earth.
Being unable to find the monomer, he abandoned the hypothesis in 1942.
Every scenario you have ever read concerning the conditions necessary for life involves water—from the “warm little pond” where Darwin supposed life began to the bubbling sea vents that are now the most popular candidates for life’s beginnings—but all this overlooks the fact that to turn monomers into polymers (which is to say, to begin to create proteins) involves what is known to biology as “dehydration linkages.
The actual chemistry of all this is a little arcane for our purposes here, but it is enough to know that if you make monomers wet they don’t turn into polymers—except when creating life on Earth.
What we have done is to synthesize a lightweight but very strong polymer from alternating monomers of para-phenylenediamine and terephthalic acid.
That would limit cell absorption considerably, except that there’s a monomer fiber strung along the vasal matrix that’s drawing particles from a small isotopic shunt in the hypothalamus.