Organic polymers play a crucial role in living things, providing basic structural materials and participating in vital life processes. For example, the\u00a0solid\u00a0parts of all\u00a0plants\u00a0are made up of polymers. These include cellulose,\u00a0lignin, and various\u00a0resins. Cellulose is a\u00a0polysaccharide, a polymer that is composed of sugar molecules. Lignin consists of a complicated three-dimensional network of polymers. Wood resins are polymers of a simple hydrocarbon,\u00a0isoprene. Another familiar isoprene polymer is\u00a0rubber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other important natural polymers include the proteins, which are polymers of\u00a0amino acids, and the\u00a0nucleic acids, which are polymers of\u00a0nucleotides\u2014complex molecules composed of nitrogen-containing bases, sugars, and\u00a0phosphoric acid. The nucleic acids carry genetic information in the cell.\u00a0Starches, important sources of food energy\u00a0derived\u00a0from plants, are natural polymers composed of glucose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many inorganic polymers also are found in nature, including diamond and graphite. Both are composed of\u00a0carbon. In diamond, carbon atoms are linked in a three-dimensional network that gives the material its hardness. In graphite, used as a lubricant and in pencil \u201cleads,\u201d the carbon atoms link in planes that can slide across one another.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Organic polymers play a crucial role in living things, providing basic structural materials and participating in vital life processes. For example, the\u00a0solid\u00a0parts of all\u00a0plants\u00a0are made up of polymers. These include cellulose,\u00a0lignin, and various\u00a0resins. Cellulose is a\u00a0polysaccharide, a polymer that is composed of sugar molecules. Lignin consists of a complicated three-dimensional network of polymers. Wood resins […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inorganic-compounds"],"Cooking_time":"","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2107,"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions\/2107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cake.appscodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}