The official Neoprene thread

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I love all sorts of plastic smells, but soft PVC has that mysterious chlorine undertone that I will never get sick of.
here is a list of synthetic fabrics and how they smell when burned (I've been meaning to try this for years...)

Acetate is made from cellulose (wood fibers), technically cellulose acetate. Acetate burns readily with a flickering flame that cannot be easily extinguished. The burning cellulose drips and leaves a hard ash. The smell is similar to burning wood chips.

Acrylic technically acrylonitrile is made from natural gas and petroleum. Acrylics burn readily due to the fiber content and the lofty, air filled pockets. A match or cigarette dropped on an acrylic blanket can ignite the fabric which will burn rapidly unless extinguished. The ash is hard. The smell is acrid or harsh.

Nylon is a polyamide made from petroleum. Nylon melts and then burns rapidly if the flame remains on the melted fiber. If you can keep the flame on the melting nylon, it smells like burning plastic.

Polyester is a polymer produced from coal, air, water, and petroleum products. Polyester melts and burns at the same time, the melting, burning ash can bond quickly to any surface it drips on including skin. The smoke from polyester is black with a sweetish smell. The extinguished ash is hard.

Rayon is a regenerated cellulose fiber which is almost pure cellulose. Rayon burns rapidly and leaves only a slight ash. The burning smell is close to burning leaves.

I've never tried it. I think it would be cool, especially since it wouldn't chafe like clothes do.

Speaking of Acrylonitrile, I wonder if the nitrile group can be oxidized to a Nitro group without completely consuming hydrogen-carbon bonds You'd need a mild oxidizer for something like that. But would be potentially explosive
That would be pretty cool to make a fabric that is a shock-sensitive explosive

And you *still* maintain that women dont really want sex(?)

I realize that's an attempt at a joke, but just to point out the obvious, being naked and having sex are entirely different things.

I do, yes. Although I don't think it needs to be a big tank, it could just be a tub. I think people have tried some things like putting jello powder into kiddie pools, although I hate the texture of jello because it's too rigid and sloppy.

I would love to be in a vat of jello. That would be awesome. It's so... jiggly and slippery... you'd feel so suspended in it. -laughs.-

I admit I was wrong... to try and rationalize with irrational people.

The Polymerisation of and Physical properties of Neoprene

Neoprene is a synthetic elastomer: a kind of man-made rubber. Elastomers stretch easily and return to their original shapes after stretching. Neoprene was originally developed by Wallace Carothers (the same man who invented nylon).

Air can be bubbled through liquid neoprene to form an elastomeric foam. Neoprene foam sheets are light, but tough, durable and flexible. Air trapped inside the foam gives neoprene heat insulating and shock absorbing properties. This makes neoprene ideal for use in orthopaedic braces (harnesses such as your Melissa), knee pads, sports gloves, wet-suits, pet collars and even my mouse mat!

Neoprene is a polymer. A polymer is a very long molecular chain formed by chemically linking smaller molecules called monomers. Mono means “one unit” and poly means “many units”. We call such long molecules such as polymers macromolecules. Think of a polymer as being like a very long necklace chain. In this analogy, each monomer is like a link in this chain.

The monomer of Neoprene is a molecule called chloroprene. Chloroprene’s simplified structural formula (in chemical short-hand) is:

H2C= C(Cl)-CH=CH2

Where:
H represents a hydrogen atom.
C represents a carbon atom.
Cl represents a chlorine atom.
= represents a double covalent bond
- represents a single covalent bond

This molecule of chloroprene is unsaturated (contains double carbon bonds) and is hence very reactive. The polymer Neoprene is produced from monomers of chloroprene by the process of addition polymerisation.

The process of addition polymerisation involves molecules with unpaired free electrons (called free radicals) attacking the double bonds of the monomer. These free radicals are called “initiators” because they start a chain reaction. This chain reaction propagates to form a chain as weakened double bonds weakened by the free radicals, release free electrons of their own. The free electrons from the double bonds attack and weaken more double bonds, which in turn release more free electrons and so on...

When a pair of free radicals react with each other to form a stable molecule that’s not part of the main polymer, this is called termination. The process of polymerisation continues until all the free radicals are used up.

There may be hundreds of thousands of monomer molecules joined together in a single polymer. The chemical name for the polymer of Neoprene is polychloroprene, which literally means “many joined molecules of chloroprene”.

A simplified general structural formula for polychloroprene (Neoprene) is:

[-CH2-C(Cl)=CH-CH2-]n

Where n is the number of monomers that underwent addition polymerisation.

You’ll notice that there is a double carbon bond in the middle of each joined monomer unit. Hence, the resulting polymer is an unsaturated molecule. This is a consequence of the polymerisation chain reaction. Double bonds in the centre of a molecule are more chemically stable (less reactive) than those at the ends of the molecule.