Polymers: Part 1

Describe the following terms:

Polymer

Textile materials are made up of natural and synthetic fibre-forming polymers. A polymer is a generic term for a combination of large molecules, made from a chain of smaller chemical units called monomers.

Fibre

A fibre is a fine and flexible textile material, with a high ratio of length to thickness. All fibres are classed as natural and manufactured with a number of sub groups. Fibres can be short or very long depending on where they come from and how they are manufactured. 

Microfibres

Microfibre technology combines a high number of very fine fibres into one yarn of one decitex or less, meaning 10 kilometres of the filament weigh one gram or less. Microfibres are around 60-100 times finer than human hair!