Silicones are a type of synthetic polymer, a material made of smaller, repeating chemical units called monomers that are bonded together in long chains. Silicone consists of a silicon-oxygen backbone, with “sidechains” consisting of hydrogen and/or hydrocarbon groups attached to the silicon atoms. Because its backbone does not contain carbon, silicone is considered an inorganic polymer, which differs from the many organic polymers whose backbones are made of carbon.
