Explain it: How is plastic made?

  • SHARE
Explain it

... like I'm 5 years old

Plastic is a man-made material we find all over our daily life. It's in our phones, our cars, our food packaging, and even our clothes. But how is it made? Well, it's a bit like baking a cake.

Just like you need specific ingredients to bake a cake, you need specific ingredients to make plastic. These ingredients are different types of chemicals that come from oil and natural gas. When these ingredients are mixed together and heated up, they transform into a dough-like substance. This substance is then cooled down and shaped into whatever form of plastic we need.

Just like a cake, once this plastic dough is baked, it can't be turned back into its original ingredients. This is why plastic is non-biodegradable and can cause pollution if not disposed of properly.

"Making plastic is like baking a cake. You mix the ingredients, bake it and once it's done, it can't be unbaked."

Explain it

... like I'm in College

The process of making plastic is a bit more complex than baking a cake. The 'ingredients' or chemicals used to make plastic come from crude oil and natural gas. These ingredients include substances like ethylene and propylene.

These substances go through a chemical process called polymerization. In this process, the small molecules of ethylene and propylene are linked together to form long chains. These long chains are called polymers, and it's these polymers that make up plastic.

Once these polymers are formed, they are cooled and cut into small pellets. These pellets are then heated and moulded into the final plastic products we use every day. This process is called thermoforming.

EXPLAIN IT with

Imagine you're building a house with Lego bricks. The bricks are your raw materials, like the ethylene and propylene in plastic production. You can join these bricks together in different ways to create different structures - that's like the polymerization process.

Once you've built your Lego house, you can't easily turn it back into the individual bricks it was made from. That's similar to plastic - once it's been molded into a certain shape, it's hard to turn it back into its original form.

Just like you might add doors, windows, or other details to your Lego house, additives can be included in the plastic to give it specific properties. And just as you might heat a Lego brick to reshape it, plastic pellets are heated and reshaped into the final product.

Explain it

... like I'm an expert

From a chemist's perspective, the creation of plastic is a fascinating journey. It begins with the extraction of hydrocarbons from natural resources such as crude oil and natural gas. The hydrocarbons, such as ethylene and propylene, are then subjected to a process called 'cracking' that breaks them down into smaller molecules.

Following this, a process known as polymerization takes place. Through heating and under the influence of catalysts, these molecules are joined together in a chain-like structure, forming polymers. The nature of the polymer chain - its length, arrangement, and the types of molecules it contains - determines the properties of the resulting plastic.

A variety of additives can be included, such as fillers, plasticizers, stabilizers, and pigments, to tailor the final properties of the plastic. After the polymerization process, the plastic is usually in the form of resin or pellets, which are then melted and molded into the desired shape.

  • SHARE