General Aspects of Copolymerization

In synthesizing copolymers one is interested in the average chain composition in terms of the average ratio of the two monomers in the copolymer chains, the composition distribution and within a chain the block length distribution (blocky copolymers, alternating copolymers etc). All these characteristics are controlled by the feed ratio of the two monomers in combination with the copolymer reactivity ratios. This chapter will give the general background to copolymerization, composition drift, medium effects on copolymerizations and methods to extract copolymerization parameters from experimental data.