Potato chips wouldn’t be quite so delicious without the packaging that maintains their freshness. ExxonMobil, the company my father works for, produces plastic film that is used to package products such as potato chips and candy bars. The bag is made out of oriented polypropylene. By orienting, or stretching, this polymer, ExxonMobil produces the flexible material used to bag chips.

Polypropylene is a hydrocarbon that is a by-product of oil. It contains a long chain of carbon atoms bonded to each other with single, nonpolar, covalent bonds. Every other carbon atom in the chain has a methyl group attached to it. Since carbon and hydrogen are nonmetallic elements, the forces of attraction in the carbon-carbon bond and carbon-hydrogen bonds are Van der Wal forces. Polypropylene can be made through catalysis to be either atactic or isotactic. The most common form, isotactic, has all the methyl groups on the same side of the carbon chain. Atactic polypropylene has methyl groups randomly on either side of the carbon chain. Because polypropylene is inert, it is unaffected by many chemical agents in the environment. This makes it a good material to package food.
Polypropylene has many other uses besides food packaging. In a thicker form, it is used as dishwasher-safe containers because it has such a high melting point, 174 Celsius degrees. It can also be used as a fiber, in such products as outdoor plastic carpeting.
Thanks to this versatile vinyl polymer couch potatoing has never been tastier!

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