Polymer science, early days

Since the days of Staudinger [29] and the birth of polymer science early in this century, vast arrays of oligomers and high-molar-mass synthetic polymers have been produced with coil dimensions well over 10 A [30]. Although many advances... 

At the end of the 1930s, the only generally available method for determining mean MWs of polymers was by chemical analysis of the concentration of chain end-groups this was not very accurate and not applicable to all polymers. The difficulty of applying well tried physical chemical methods to this problem has been well put in a reminiscence of early days in polymer science by Stockmayer and Zimm (1984). The determination of MWs of a solute in dilute solution depends on the ideal, Raoult s Law term (which diminishes as the reciprocal of the MW), but to eliminate the non-ideal terms which can be substantial for polymers and which are independent of MW, one has to go to ever lower concentrations, and eventually one runs out of measurement accuracy . The methods which were introduced in the 1940s and 1950s are analysed in Chapter 11 of Morawetz s book. 

Remembering the Early Days of Polymer Science. In Raymond B. Seymour... 

In the early days of polymer science, when polystyrene became a commercial product, insolubility was sometimes observed which was not expected from the functionality of this monomer. Staudinger and Heuer [2] could show that this insolubility was due to small amounts of tetrafunctional divinylbenzene present in styrene as an impurity from its synthesis. As little as 0.02 mass % is sufficient to make polystyrene of a molecular mass of 2001000 insoluble [3]. This knowledge and the limitations of the technical processing of insoluble and non-fusible polymers as compared with linear or branched polymers explains why, over many years, research on the polymerization of crosslinking monomers alone or the copolymerization of bifunctional monomers with large fractions of crosslinking monomers was scarcely studied. 

Mark, H. 1973. The early days of polymer science. Journal of Chemical Education 50 (11) 757-60. 

The concept of coal being an organic polymer received little attention in the early days of coal science but has, of late (for reasons that often defy justification), been the subject of several investigations. However, there is also the need to adequately, or appropriately, define polymerization as it is applied to coal chemistry. 

The concept of evolution of primary sequences of biopolymers has attracted significant interest from biologists, chemists, and physidsts for a long time. " As has been discussed, it is natural to expect that the content of information in the sequences of biopolymers (proteins, DNA, RNA) is relatively high in comparison with random sequences where it should be almost zero. Presumably, the information complexity of early ancestors of present day biopolymers has been increased in the course of molecular evolution when the copolymer sequences became more and more complicated.The study of various possibilities of this evolution of copolymer sequences is just the area where the concept of evolution can be used in the context of polymer science. 

By contrast, polymer materials. science. still is in its early days. In the collection Physics today and tomorrow , S.Frenkel contrasts nuclear energetics with polymer materials science the theoretical principles of nuclear physics were developed before their introduction to practice, while polymer tecimology started for before science per sc and still uses widely trial-and-error methods. 

The first polymers used were natural products, especially cotton, starch, proteins, and wool. Beginning early in the twentieth century, synthetic polymers were made. The first polymers of importance, Bakelite and nylon, showed the tremendous possibilities of the new materials. However, the scientists of that day realized that they did not understand many of the relationships between the chemical structures and the physical properties that resulted. The research that ensued forms the basis for physical polymer science. 

Spaghetti model Model for an amorphous polymer with long chains entangled around each other dates from early days of polymer science, when this structure was unfamiliar 1.5,1.6... 

On this occasion Professor Herman F. Mark received the Fourth Division of Polymer Chemistry Award for his outstanding achievements and his unique missionary role in the development of Polymer Chemistry. Professor Mark was the premier organizer of many important firsts in polymer chemistry, to name just a few - the first polymer journal, the pre-eminent Journal of Polymer Science the first U.S. academic center of Polymer Science at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute which led to a long procession of eminent polymer scientists the "High Polymer" Monograph series. In the Division of Polymer Chemistry, he was the first secretary-treasurer and chairman in 1955.. A detailed biography follows along with Professor liark s reminiscences on the Early Days of Polymer Science, the topic of his Award lecture. 

Likewise, chemical coupling to form ohgomers and polymers of pyrrole, thiophene and many other heterocycles was begun in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (see citations in [30]). The resulting materials were poorly characterized, partly because of the mdimentary analytical techniques of the day, and partly because of their insolubility. In particular, it was rarely clear whether the products were branched or linear. Nevertheless, by the 60s [30], it became routine to measure the electrical conductivity of the product. The science learned was marginally useful, but a catalog of monomers was generated for future use. 

After all, Staudinger s visit was a big event for the polymer community, intended to attract public attention to this newly emerging field of science and technology. Documents from those days indicate that SPSJ, which was established in 1951, continued to grow by gaining about 400 members each year until the trend stopped because of the oil crisis in the early 1970s (Sect. 6). 

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