Organic Chemistry Principles and Industrial Practice

Preface. What the Experts Say about this Book. 1. How Petroleum is converted into Useful Materials: Carbocations and Free Radicals are the Keys. 2. Polymerization, Polypropylene and the Principles of Stereochemistry. 3. The Central Role of Electrophilic Aromatic Substitution. 4. From Nucleophilic Chemistry to Crosslinking, with a Side Trip to Glycerol, in the Synthesis of Commercially Important Plastics. 5. The Nylon Story. 6. Competition for the Best Industrial Synthesis of Methyl Methacrylate. 7. Natural Rubber and Other Elastomers. 8. Ethylene and Propylene: Two Very Different Kinds of Chemistry. 9. The Demise of Acetaldehyde: A Story of How the Chemical Industry Evolves. 10. Doing Well by Doing Good. An Epilogue-The Future. Index.