M E M O R A N D U M

TO: Executive Board of the ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry (POLY)

FROM: Edward (Ted) S. Wilks

SUBJECT: Nomenclature Committee’s Report

DATE: March 31^st, 2000

Nomenclature Committee membership changes since last year:

• Ed Savitski resigned for personal reasons
• We greatly miss the late Kurt Loening’s wisdom and experience

The "call for new members" notice on the POLY website has elicited no further direct inquiries in the last 18 months. Nevertheless, the ACS POLYmer Division Nomenclature Committee proposes to leave it on the website in the hope that prospective members will be attracted. In addition to the regular members at the August, 2000 meeting, guest members were Dr. Namita Roy Chaudhury and Clint Gamlin (Ph.D. student), both from the Polymer Science Group, Ian Wark Research Institute, University of South Australia. Also present was Prof. John Droske, who had earlier indicated his desire to be on the Committee, but had been unable to attend for health reasons.

A IUPAC Projects

Four Committee members (Fox, Metanomski, Wilks, and Work) continue to be involved in the IUPAC Commission on Macromolecular Nomenclature, although Fox and Metanomski are enjoying "semi-retirement" in that they now act mainly as consultants. Topics in various stages of development to which members have contributed are:

• Metanomski, Wilks: Glossary of Polymer Class Names (Project 30/97)
• Wilks: Nomenclature for Rotaxanes and Catenanes (Project 35/2000)
• Wilks: Process-Based Nomenclature for Modified Polymers (Project 33/99)
• Wilks: overall editorship of the revised "Purple Book"
• Work: Definitions of Terms Related to Polymer Blends and Multi-Phase Polymeric Materials (Project 24/93)

The documents for Projects 33/99 and 35/2000 were again shortened and simplified; suggestions for further changes made by working party members will be implemented in the next revisions.

Leadership of the macrocycles document (Project 29/97) has passed from Fox and Wilks to Prof. Ernest Maréchal, IUPAC Commission IV.1 member.

B Promulgation of Correct Polymer Nomenclature and Structure-Based Representations

B1 Web-Based Version of MNN18

Ted Wilks is still working on a greatly expanded version of Macromolecular Nomenclature Note No. 18. This will be an English-language, web-based version of a set of guidelines, called principles by CAS and recommendations by IUPAC, for correct identification, orientation, and naming of CRUs/SRUs. This will be made available on the IUPAC website.  Hopefully, a "hot link" (cross-reference) to this document will be added to the POLY website. This will be a "do-it-yourself" mini-manual that gives readers step-by-step instructions for most structure-based polymer representations. In contrast to MNN 18, which presents the basic CAS principles and IUPAC recommendations, but gives few details on how to apply them, the new document is designed as a "route map" based on the "if, then" principle that will cover a wide range of commonly encountered CRU/SRU formats. Information will be included on where to go for help if users encounter difficulties. This item still has high priority, but implementation planned before the end of 2000 was not achieved because the task of writing the document proved to be more time-consuming, by orders of magnitude, than originally estimated. This continues to be a work in progress.

B2 Other Versions of MNN18

Further developments toward promulgation of MNN18 are as follows:

• Published in English in Macromol. Chem. Phys., 2000, 201, 2615-2620, by courtesy of Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, Germany, through Dr. Ingrid Meisel, a IUPAC Commission IV.1 member.

• Published in Hungarian in Müanyag és Gumi (Rubber and Plastics), by courtesy of Prof. Geza Bódor.

• Accepted for publication in Chinese by the Polymer Bulletin editorial staff. It will be published in the second or third issue of this bimonthly journal in 2001. A web version will then be made available on the POLY website.
• The Spanish-language version is available on the POLY website, by courtesy of Prof. Javier Macossay.
• Work is still in progress on translations into:

• Korean, courtesy Prof. Choon Do
• Polish, courtesy Prof. Osman Akhmatowicz*
• Portuguese (for Brazilian readers), courtesy Dr. David Tabak*
• Russian, courtesy Prof. Valery Shibaev* (Vysokomolekulyarnye Soedineniya will publish English and Russian versions)

*IUPAC Commission IV.1 member

Plans for Japanese- and Turkish-language versions were abandoned; publishers’ replies were discouraging .

Web availability for the various MNN 18 versions continues to be provided by Dr. Frank Blum (University of Missouri - Rolla); for MNN 1 through 19 and a list of publications containing valid recommendations on macromolecular terminology and nomenclature.

B3 Other MNN Versions

• The Spanish-language version of MNN17 is now available on the POLY website. Our thanks go to Prof. Javier Macossay for his translation.

• MNN19, by Prof. Béla Iván, was published in Macromol. Chem. Phys., 2000, 201, 2621-2628, by courtesy of Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, Germany, through Dr. Ingrid Meisel, a IUPAC Commission IV.1 member; it is now available also on the POLY website.

B4 Other Web-Available Articles on Polymer Nomenclature and Terminology

Past copies of the "Back Pages" PMSE Notes, reprinted with permission of Prof. C. Ober, PMSE, are now available on POLY website. Our thanks go to Dr. Frank Blum for adding them.

• "Gel Permeation Chromatography" by Les Sperling
• "Mechanical Behavior Terminology" by Les Sperling
• "Mediated Radical Polymerization" by Bob A. Howell
• "Modern Nomenclature and Terminology for Polymer Science and Engineering" by L. H. Sperling and W. V. Metanomski
• "Nomenclature and Notational Problems in the Phase Separation Characteristics of Block Copolymers" by L. H. Sperling
• "Polymer Network Definitions" by L. H. Sperling
• "Nomenclature In Polymer Science And Engineering" by L. H. Sperling and W. V. Metanomski
• "Polymer Nomenclature II: Engineering and Novel Multicomponent Polymer Structures" by L. H. Sperling and W. V. Metanomski
• "Polymer Surfaces and Interfaces: The Need for Uniform Terminology" by L. H. Sperling
• "Proposed Nomenclature for Rubber-Toughened Plastics" by L. H. Sperling

B5 Revised Nomenclature Chapter for the "CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics"

At the invitation of Dr. David Lide, and based on the previous article on polymer nomenclature written by Bob Fox, Ted Wilks revised, expanded, and updated the article for the next edition of the Handbook, which is expected this year.

B6 The Encyclopedia that Never Was

Ted Wilks wrote a 30-page article on CAS and IUPAC approaches to polymer nomenclature for an encyclopedia planned for publication in 2001. The publishers canceled the project, so the article remains unpublished. Inquiries to tedwilks@juno.com from authors writing books on polymers will be welcomed.

C "Industrial Polymers Handbook: Products, Processes, Applications"

This four-volume work on the fundamentals of polymerization with a special focus on the industrial aspect of synthetic polymers was published in January, 2001 by Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, Germany; it includes a 39-page chapter on polymer nomenclature by Ted Wilks, who was also overall editor for the book.

D Other Matters

The Nomenclature Committee continues to promote polymer-nomenclature recommendations, especially those of the IUPAC Commission on Macromolecular Nomenclature (Commission IV.1). The Committee monitors how the macromolecular nomenclature matters are explained and discussed in various textbooks and handbooks, and offers suggestions for improvements. Individual questions from POLY members and requests to help in the naming of polymers are answered promptly.