Controlling Structural Irregularities

Radical polymerization is often the preferred mechanism for forming polymers and most commercial polymer materials involve radical chemistry at some stage of their production cycle. From both economic and practical viewpoints, the advantages of radical over other forms of polymerization arc many (Chapter 1). However, one of the often-cited "problems" with radical polymerization is a perceived lack of control over the process the inability to precisely control molecular weight and distribution, limited capacity to make complex architectures and the range of undefined defect structures and other forms of "structure irregularity" that may be present in polymers prepared by this mechanism. Much research has been directed at providing answers for problems of this nature. In this, and in the subsequent chapter, we detail the current status of the efforts to redress these issues. In this chapter, wc focus on how to achieve control by appropriate selection of the reaction conditions in conventional radical polymerization. 

Free radical polymerization Relatively insensitive to trace impurities Reactions can occur in aqueous media Can use chain transfer to solvent to modify polymerization process Structural irregularities are introduced during initiation and termination steps Chain transfer reactions lead to reduced molecular weight and branching Limited control of tacticity High pressures often required... 

Axial symmetry in a chain is a major factor in determining its ability to form crystallites, and one method of altering the crystalline content is to incorporate some structural irregularity in the chain. The controlled inclusion of linear symmetrical... 

Kim, H., Adeli, H. (2005). Hybrid control of irregular steel highrise building structures under seismie excitations. IntemationalJournalfor Numerical Methods in Engineering, 63,1757-1774. doi 10.1002/nme.l336... 

Although random and irregular type GaN nanorods have been prepared by using transition metal nanoparticles, such as Ni, Co, and Fe as catalysts and carbon nanotubes as the template, the preparation of controllable regular array of strai t GaN nanorods has not yet been reported. Fabrication of well-ordered nano-structures with high density is very important for the application of nano-structures to practical devices. 

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