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Homopolymer

Polyvinyl chloride is a homopolymer. The only monomer used in polymerisation is vinyl chloride. The repeating unit is −C2H3Cl−, the same chemical formula as the monomer.
Polyethylene terephthalate is made from two monomers (terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol), but is a homopolymer because it has only one repeating unit, −O2C8H4O2C2H4−
Polyvinyl alcohol can't be made from monomers, but its structure makes it a homopolymer of the hypothetical monomer vinyl alcohol.

A homopolymer is a type of polymer that has only one repeating unit. Homopolymers can be broken apart into smaller pieces of one chemical species, which may or may not be the physical monomer used to make the polymer.[1] The four most used plastics (polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, polypropylene, and polyethylene terephthalate) are all homopolymers.[2]

Real and implicit monomers

A homopolymer is defined based on its structure, not how that structure is made. Polyethylene terephthalate is made from two "real monomers", terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol, but these compounds always react in an alternating pattern, making an "implicit monomer" that repeats in the structure. These polymers are copolymers because they are made of multiple real chemical species, but homopolymers because the final structure can be broken down into copies of juts one piece.[3]

Polymers made by chemical changes of another polymer after polymerisation have "hypothetical monomers". One example is polyvinyl alcohol: the hypothetical monomer is vinyl alcohol, but this enol is too unstable to polymerise. The polymer must be made by hydrolysis of polyvinyl acetate.

Sources

  1. ↑ IUPAC, Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. (the "Gold Book") (2025). Online version: (2006–) "homopolymer". doi:10.1351/goldbook.H02854
  2. ↑ Geyer, Roland; Jambeck, Jenna R.; Law, Kara Lavender (2017). "Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made". Science Advances. 3 (7) e1700782. Bibcode:2017SciA....3E0782G. doi:10.1126/sciadv.1700782. PMC 5517107. PMID 28776036.
  3. ↑ IUPAC, Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. (the "Gold Book") (2025). Online version: (2006–) "alternating copolymer". doi:10.1351/goldbook.A00250

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