Covalent bonds historical development

Abstract The key to the concept of re-mendable covalently bonded polymers developed in our group is a polymerization/crossUnking reaction discovered by Staudinger and later applied, partially, by StiUe. This accotmt gives the historical perspective on our results based on the Staudinger cyclopentadiene polymerization and crossing paths with Staudinger in personal life. 

Polymer technology is quite old compared to polymer science. For example, natural rubber was first masticated to render it suitable for dissolution or spreading on cloth in 1820. and the first patents on vulcanization appeared some twenty years later. About another one hundred years were to elapse, however, before it was generally accepted that natural rubber and other polymers are composed of giant covalently bonded molecules that differ from ordinary molecules primarily only in size. (The historical development of modern ideas of polymer constitution is traced by Flory in his classical book on polymer chemistry [ I ], while Brydson [2] reviews the history of polymer technology.) Since some of the terms we are going to review derive from technology, they are less precisely defined than those the... 

Concomitant with this conceptual progression has been a corresponding decrease in the typical energies under consideration. Attention has shifted from covalent bond energies to coordinative metal-ligand association to relatively weak interactions this evolution is consistent with the development of chemistry as a whole, which historically has focused upon successively weaker interactions between species (from considering compounds in tenns of covalent bonds and connectivities, and subsequently in terms of conformational interactions and polarities). 

The opinion, forcefully defended by H. Staudinger in particular, that only chains with covalent bonds represent genuine macromolecules is historically reasonable and was necessary as a concept in the development of the idea of macromolecular character (see Section 1.3). The division between the true macromolecule and a coordination lattice can be quite fluid for inorganic compounds, so that the macromolecular character of such compounds cannot always be easily recognized or defined. Ion lattices. 

Expecting to capitalize on this historical attraction to fibers, ARCO Chemical Company developed techniques to dry-spin concentrated aqueous solutions of poly(isobutylene-co-disodium maleate) [36, 53-57]. Although hydrogen bond formation is claimed, covalent crosslinking may also be present from direct esterification between carboxyl groups on the partially neutralized maleic acid copolymer and added hydroxyl-functional curing agents. 

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