Contrast With Condensation Polymers
With exception of combustion, the backbone of addition polymers are generally chemically inert. This is due to the very strong C-C and C-H bonds and lack of polarisation within many addition polymers. For this reason they are non-biodegradable and hard to recycle. This is, again, in contrast to condensation polymers which are bio-degradable and can be recycled.
Many exceptions to this rule are products of ring-opening polymerization, which tends to produce condensation-like polymers even though it is an additive process. For example, poly is chemically identical to polyethylene glycol except that it is formed by opening ethylene oxide rings rather than eliminating water from ethylene glycol. Nylon 6 was developed to thwart the patent on nylon 6,6, and while it does have a slightly different structure, its mechanical properties are remarkably similar to its condensation counterpart.
One universal distinction between polymerization types is development of molecular weight by the different modes of propagation. Addition polymers form high molecular weight chains rapidly, with much monomer remaining. Since addition polymerization has rapidly growing chains and free monomer as its reactants, and condensation polymerization occurs in step-wise fashion between monomers, dimers, and other smaller growing chains, the effect of a polymer molecule's current size on a continuing reaction is profoundly different in these two cases. This has important effects on the distribution of molecular weights, or polydispersity, in the finished polymer.
Read more about this topic: Addition Polymer
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