Chemguide

Extra material needed for the 2010 exam - Chapter 21

This page lists the material from the old Edexcel syllabus which isn't covered by my new Edexcel IGCSE Chemistry book.

Manufacture of poly(ethene)

As well as a need to know the structure of poly(ethene), the old syllabus also expected you to know how poly(ethene) is manufactured.

To save me having to type it all out again, please see the Chemguide page about poly(ethene) for the conditions for this reaction. You only need to read about low density poly(ethene) at the top of the page.

Terylene - a condensation polymer

The old syllabus said that you should be able to "apply the principles of condensation polymerisation to other condensation polymers, including terylene".

You will find a question about this in the book (page 174 Q3), which should give some indication of the sort of thing you might get asked.

There is a Chemguide page about polyesters (which includes terylene) - all you need to do is to read it down as far as where it starts to talk about its manufacture. Don't attempt to read this unless you have first understood a little about esters by following the link I gave you towards the bottom of the Chapter 19 extras page.

In any other condensation polymerisation that they might come up with, you should always be able to find obvious places where you can "lasso" out water or other small molecules in this sort of way. To be honest, I would be very surprised if they ever went beyond nylon and simple polyesters like terylene, anyway. Students find these basic examples difficult enough at this level without making it even more complicated.

Return to complete list of extras

Return to main IGCSE menu