At RAPID + TCT 2026 in Boston, additive manufacturing moved beyond prototypes toward practical, scalable applications. Exhibits featured affordable metal and polymer systems, advanced medical devices, ... Polymer solutions and hydrogels have emerged as pivotal materials in biomedical engineering due to their adaptable chemical structures, biocompatibility and the capacity to mimic the natural ...

Understanding the Context

Researchers have unveiled the remarkable potential of mesoporous carbon materials as advanced carriers for delivering compounds across environmental, biomedical, and industrial applications. A new ... Polymers range from familiar synthetic plastics such as polystyrene to natural biopolymers such as DNA and proteins that are fundamental to biological structure and function. Polymers, both natural and synthetic, are created via polymerization of many small molecules, known as monomers.

Key Insights

Read the latest articles of Polymer at ScienceDirect.com, Elsevier’s leading platform of peer-reviewed scholarly literature polymer, any of a class of natural or synthetic substances composed of very large molecules, called macromolecules, that are multiples of simpler chemical units called monomers. A polymer is a chemical compound with molecules bonded together in long, repeating chains. Because of their structure, polymers have unique properties that can be tailored for different uses. A polymer is a term used for large chemical compounds with several subunits. These subunits are also known as monomers, and they are linked to each other in long recurring chains.

Final Thoughts

A polymer is a chemical substance made from repeating monomer units linked into long chains or networks. Polymers occur naturally, such as DNA, which forms from four linked nucleic acids (adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine), and they can also be manufactured, as in plastics like nylon.