Abstract
There are several advantages to including polymer topics in both undergraduate and graduate physical chemistry courses. The first is to illustrate similarities and differences between systems with which the student is already familiar (such as ideal gases and metals) and more complex materials (in the present case polymeric materials having elastomeric properties). Another advantage is to provide particular examples illustrating the validity of very general results, such as the Carnot cycle analysis being independent of the working substance. It is possible to use aspects of rubberlike elasticity to illustrate a number of general molecular and thermodynamic concepts, making them more meaningful to the student. The items chosen here for this purpose are: (i) random flights of polymer chains and excluded volume effects, (ii) molecular origins of the elasticities of some types of materials, (iii) equations of state, (iv) thermodynamic non-ideality, (v) temperature changes during deformations and retractions, (vi) Carnot cycles and mechanochemistry, (vii) energy storage and hysteresis, and (viii) gel collapse.
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