A Macromolecular Proposal Ask yourself which chemical material contributes the most to our society's everyday convenience and well-being. It shouldn't require a long moment to think of polymers, organic plastics, and inorganic ceramics. We wear them, drive them, pack our travel clothes in them, write with them, dial numbers with them, and buy our food wrapped in them. Sports fishermen cast plastic baits on plastic lines from plastic reels on plastic rods. Great authors compose their thoughts on a plastic keyboard, store them on plastic disks, and print them with plastic inks. Polymers a r e indispensably everywhere. By now you are asking: Why this extolling? I recently attended an interesting conference of the Society of Polymer Science of Japan and, besides learning about some very nice research, I was reminded of how little I hear about polymers. The central challenge for analytical chemists in today's world is inventing and developing new concepts, applications, and products. A second, also important, challenge is to teach how new knowledge in chemistry has affected our lives. Polymers provide such easily recognizable examples that it is difficult to defend their virtual absence from curricula. If one of our educational goals is to give students an appreciation of
how analytical chemistry affects their lives, and how a career in it can enhance the lives of others, a case can be made that instruction in polymers should command a higher priority. General chemistry is practically devoid of discussion about these important materials, which certainly will attract students' attention more than will ideal gases! Ion-exchange and gel polymers are introduced in analytical courses a s separation phases and membranes in ion-selective electrodes, but basic ideas underlying permeation and transport, optical and thermal measurement of crystallinity, molecular weight measurement and distribution, and electrolyte acid-base equilibria a r e not found. The steady introduction of modern aspects of analytical measurements into undergraduate courses over recent years is laudable, particularly in spectroscopy and separations science. I think it is time that measurement concepts for polymeric materials also begin to find some space in our crowded undergraduate (and graduate) programs. The large role of polymers in our lives, by itself, warrants this proposal.
ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 65, NO. 1, JANUARY 1, 1993
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