What Are the Types of Polymerization?
There are two types of polymerization known as step-reaction polymerization or condensation and chain-reaction polymerization. These two types of polymerization both create high molecular mass molecules from monomers through a chemical reaction.
With chain-reaction polymerization, there are three steps that takes two chemicals. The chemical reaction needs a catalyst and forms a free radical before polymerization is complete. The three steps in chain-reaction polymerization are initiation, propagation and termination.
With step-reaction polymerization, polymers are created through higher temperatures than chain-reaction polymerization and polymers have a lower molecular weight. This process also takes at the minimum several hours and can take up to a few days, which is much slower than the chain-reaction polymerization process.
