1. Preparation

1.1 Polypropylene structure

Polypropylene is one of the four main thermoplastics, along with polyethylene, polystyrene and polyvinyl chloride, with a tonnage representing 21% of total plastics.

The name polypropylene actually conceals a whole range of materials. At the very least, we can distinguish between homopolymers, copolymers and compounds. A homopolymer is prepared by chemically bonding identical units, in this case propylene. A copolymer is an assembly of several monomers, generally propylene and ethylene, in variable proportions and modes. Compounds are more or less complex mixtures.