Composites Design and Manufacture (University of Plymouth teaching support materials) Periodic table.  Electron configuration of carbon atoms and molecules.

Lecture PowerPoint

Review papers

Subject Index

Some introductory chemistry

For an introduction to the Periodic Table of the Elements, see: see for example

• About .. Chemistry Periodic Table of the Elements
• American Elements
• Chemicool Periodic Table
• Periodic Table of Videos
• Visual Elements (RSC)

Most polymers are based on the element carbon (the sixth element in the Periodic Table).  An understanding of basic organic (i.e. carbon) chemistry will permit sensible conversations with materials suppliers later in your career.

^*.. on PC, you will need the Cortona3D Viewer plug-in for your browser to view the virtual reality animations below
 .. on Apple, you will need FreeWRL VRML/X3D Viewer plug-in for your browser to view the virtual reality animations below
- position the mouse pointer over the image then hold down the main button while moving the mouse to get movement.

I recommend that you take a while to study the following sequence of pages from Jim Clark's excellent Chemguide website, as they sensibly cover the key issues required for the chemical understanding of the materials used in polymers and composites:

• Atomic orbitals
• Electronic structure
• virtual reality animation^* of the three orthogonal atomic p-orbitals (created by Neill Hughes)
• Bonding in methane and ethane and in ethene
• virtual reality animation ^* of the four sp³ hybrid molecular electron orbitals (created by Neill Hughes)
• Bonding in ethene
• Bonding in benzene: Kekulé resonance and delocalised orbital models

When additional groups are bonded to the benzene ring the respectove positions have different names or numbers as indicated in Figure 1.  Bond positions notation against a reference position (R) are that numbering is clockwise and the lowest number is used (e.g. 2, not 6).

Figure 1: Benzene ring position nomenclature

Other resources for chemistry include:

• About Chemistry
• chemical and molecular structures
• encyclopaedia of chemistry  A-E  F-J  K-O  P-T  U-Z
• glossary of chemical terms
• Royal Society of Chemistry - Learn Chemsitry Polymers Student Pack
• University of Liverpool ChemTube3D app
• University of Oxford - Vitual (Chemistry) Laboratory