Demand Functional Form Additive

In many cases latex products are composed of more than one monomer. In copolymerisation two or more monomers are built-in into the polymer chains. The copolymer chains are produced by simultaneous polymerisation of two or more monomers in emulsion. Emulsion copolymerisation allows the production of materials with properties which cannot be obtained by latex products consisting of one monomer, that is, homopolymer latexes, or by blending homopolymers. The properties of the materials required are usually dictated by the market. Nowadays, most of the material properties are achieved by combination of more than two monomers in the copolymer product. Typical industrial emulsion polymerisation formulations are mixtures of monomers giving hard polymers, and monomers leading to soft polymers. Styrene and methyl methacrylate are examples of monomers giving hard polymers, that is, polymers with a high glass transition temperature, Tg. Soft polymers, that is, polymers with a low Tg, are, for example, formed from -butyl acrylate. The industrial emulsion polymerisation formulations also contain small amounts of functional monomers such as acrylic and methacrylic acid to impart improved or special characteristics to the latex product. Note that the colloidal stability of the latex product can be seriously improved by acrylic and methacrylic acid. Furthermore, some applications may demand for the addition of other specialty monomers that make the kinetics of the copolymerisation even more complex. 

In peptide synthesis the use of a suitable protection for the N-terminal amino group is required not only to prevent the formation of a complex mixture of oligo- and cyclo-peptides, but an additional demand on the functionality applied for this purpose is that it should prevent possible racemization of the activated amino acid. Racemization usually takes place via an intermediate oxazolone (7) that forms readily from A -acyl-protected amino acids (Scheme 2). This side reaction can be mostly suppressed by using a carbamate as an N-terminal-protecting group. Therefore, nearly all blocking functions currently applied in this field are of the urethane type. 

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