Nomenclature Based on Source

Some polymers are named as being derived from hypothetical monomers. Thus poly (vinyl alcohol) is actually produced by the hydrolysis of poly(vinyl acetate) 

however, named as a product of the hypothetical monomer vinyl alcohol (which in reality exists exclusively as the tautomer-acetaldehyde). 

Condensation polymers synthesized from single reactants are named in a similar manner. Examples are the polyamides and polyesters produced from amino acids and hydroxy acids, respectively. Thus, the polymer from 6-aminocaproic acid is named poly(6-aminocaproic acid) 

It should be noted that there is an ambiguity here in that poly(6-aminocaproic acid) and poly(e-caprolactam) are one and the same polymer. The same polymer is produced from two different monomers—a not uncommonly encountered situation. 

A suggestion was made to name condensation polymers synthesized from two different monomers by following the prefix poly with parentheses enclosing the names of the two reactants, with the names of the reactants separated by the term -co-. Thus, the polymer in Eq. 1-7 would be named poly(phenol-co-formaldehyde). This suggestion did not gain acceptance. 

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Three naming systems are briefly discussed here (i) conventional nomenclature based on source or structure,... 

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