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

FROM:    W. V. Metanomski

SUBJECT: POLY Nomenclature Committee's Report

DATE:    29 March 1998

   The Committee continues to promote polymer-nomenclature recommendations, in
particular, those of the IUPAC Commission on Macromolecular Nomenclature.  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 naming
polymers are answered promptly.

   Les Sperling and Val Metanomski published in the March 1998 issue of POLYMER
PREPRINTS the "Macromolecular Nomenclature Note No. 14", explaining and promoting
the new (December 1997) IUPAC recommendations on "Source-Based Nomenclature for
Non-Linear Macromolecules and Macromolecular Assemblies".  It has been noted that
the original proposal was submitted by Les to the POLY Nomenclature Committee, and
and was eventually relayed to the IUPAC Commission.

   Ted Wilks has already prepared a draft of the "Macromolecular Nomenclature
Note No. 15" for the August 1998 issue of POLYMER PREPRINTS, discussing and
proposing the nomenclature and structure representation for dendritic polymers.

   The Editorial staff of the polymer journal MACROMOLECULAR CHEMISTRY AND
PHYSICS published by Huthig & Wepf Verlag, Mainz, Germany, has expressed
interest in reprinting some of our future "Macromolecular Nomenclature Notes".
We plan to submit "Note No. l5" for their consideration.

   Les Sperling published a note on "Proposed Nomenclature for Rubber-Toughened
Plastics" on the back page of the Spring 1998 issue of PMSE - POLYMERIC MATERIALS:
SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING.  "The Back Page" in these proceedings has become a
nomenclature and terminology feature.  Les has already submitted another note,
"Polymer Network Definitions", for "The Back Page" of the Fall 1998 issue of
PMSE Proceedings, discussing covalent and physical networks polycatananes,
crosslinks, and layer polymers.

   Val Metanomski contributed a chapter on "Macromolecular (Polymer) Nomenclature"
to the 1998 IUPAC book "Principles of Chemical Nomenclature" (Leigh, Favre, and
Metanomski).

   Val has also submitted a draft of an updated introductory chapter on
"Nomenclature" for the 4th edition of Wiley's POLYMER HANDBOOK, which introduces
the IUPAC source-based and structure-based macromolecular  nomenclature, discusses
the use of trivial and semisystematic names for polymers, indicates the important
features of CA Index names, and provides a list of polymer class names.

   The Committee members continue to represent the U.S. polymer science community
on the IUPAC Commission on Macromolecular Nomenclature and participate actively
in the generation and review of their new documents.  At least three POLY Committee
members plan to attend this year's meeting in Sydney, Australia, in July 1998.

   The Committee has a WWW page associated with the POLY WWW pages:

              http://www.chem.umr.edu/~poly/nomenclature.html

which lists the Committee members (links are provided to their full and e-mail
addresses) and provides the list of "Valid Recommendations on Macromolecular
Terminology and Nomenclature".

   A great deal of information on the IUPAC Commission, its activities, projects
and membership can be found at their WWW page:

              http://www.rohmhaas.com/iupac/
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