ABSTRACT
Discussion Questions and Problems .................................................................. 41 Bibliography ...................................................................................................... 41
2.1 Introduction The theme of this chapter is that the properties of materials are closely related to their chemical structures, and thus understanding the structure/property relationships is important to the study of food packaging. More specifically, the properties of packaging materials depend on the atomic and molecular structures at four levels: (1) chemical constituents, what atoms are composed in the material, (2) chemical bonding, what forces hold the atoms together to form a molecule, (3) intermolecular forces, what forces attract molecules together to form a material, and (4) spatial arrangements, how molecules are arranged in three dimensional space. While each level has distinct characteristics, the four levels are closely related, with each level affecting the sequential levels in determining the observed material properties.
