Abstract
SOME of the newest and most fascinating developments in applied science lie in the field of high polymers—and yet the story of high polymers, since they form the principal physico-chemical basis of life, is one of the oldest and most fundamental in the world. Most natural chain-molecules still cannot be synthesized by man; but he can build many others that are not found in Nature. Among the latter were thought to be the polyesters, first synthesized by Carothers and Arvin in 1929. It is reported now by A. R. Kemp and H. Peters (India Rubber World, 110, 639; 1944) that what seems to be very likely a polyester constitutes the highly elastic skin that fits tightly round the seeds of Smilax rotundifolia Linn. The ripe berries usually contain three seeds about ½ cm. in diameter, each enclosed in a membrane about 0-003 cm. thick. On removal, the membrane is found to be stretchable by 300–400 per cent and to give then a typical X-ray fibre photograph with a probable fibre period of about 22½ A. This finding, taken in conjunction with chemical analyses carried out on the skins both before and after hydrolysis with alcoholic caustic potash, indicates that the main component is a polyester formed by the repeated condensation of a unit having 17 or 18 carbon atoms in the chain with two hydroxyl side groups, the suggested empirical formula of the monomer being C18H36O5. The conclusions are for the present tentative, but they are by no means unconvincing, and the results of further investigation—very much worth while—will be awaited with interest.
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A Natural Elastic Polyester. Nature 154, 762 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/154762b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/154762b0