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polymer

Substance composed of macromolecules with repeating structural units

Entitygroup or class of chemical substancesQ81163

Also known as polymers

Instance of: group or class of chemical substances
1
Sources
1.Stated in A Dictionary of Chemistry
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Subclass of: mixture
1
Sources
1.Stated in Compendium of Chemical Terminology
View statement on Wikidata ↗
, material

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

A polymer is a substance or material that consists of very large molecules, or macromolecules, that are constituted by many repeating subunits derived from one or more species of monomers. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic and natural polymers have essential and ubiquitous roles in everyday life. Polymers range from familiar synthetic plastics such as polystyrene to natural biopolymers such as DNA and proteins that are fundamental to biological structure and function. Polymers, both natural and synthetic, are created via polymerization of many small molecules, known as monomers. Their consequently large molecular mass, relative to small molecule compounds, produces unique physical properties including toughness, high elasticity, viscoelasticity, and a tendency to form amorphous and semicrystalline structures rather than crystals.

Overview

All data

78 statements · 23% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

On other databases

54 identifiers linking polymer across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

23%

externally sourced

Source last edited July 27, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). polymer (Q81163). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/polymer-Q81163