27 November 2007

Students in my Che 103 labs made nylon this week. As Noelle and Sarah demonstrate here, it's pretty easy to get a good long strand of nylon if you happen to have some 1,6-hexamethylene diamine and some sebacoyl dichloride. Just pour one on top of the other and the nylon starts forming right at the interface. Then put a wire or something down into the middle of the container, grab the nylon and pull. Nylon is a polyamide with six carbons between each set of nitrogens and 10 carbons between the carbonyl groups. We used sebacoyl dichloride instead of sebacic acid so that it wouldn't produce water and hydrolyze back to the original ingredients.

DWL