M E M O R A N D U M

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

FROM:        Edward (Ted) S. Wilks

SUBJECT: Nomenclature Committee's Report 

DATE:        25th March 2000

The Nomenclature Committee membership remains essentially unchanged since the last meeting, which 
was held on Monday, August 23rd, 1999.  The ³call for new members² advertisement, placed on the 
http://www.chem.umr.edu/~poly/nomenclature.html url on the web, has elicited no further inquiries in the 
last six months.  Some people who showed an interest when the ³call for new members² paragraph was 
placed on the web but were unable to attend the New Orleans meeting are planning on attending the 
meeting on Monday, March 27th, 2000.

Wilks submitted Macromolecular Nomenclature Notes No. 18, entitled ³SRUs: Using the Rules², for 
publication in Volume 41(1) of Polymer Preprints.  This article addresses the fact that, in spite of an 
excellent, although at times necessarily complex, set of rules and recommendations created by the 
combined efforts of the American Chemical Society, Chemical Abstracts Service, and IUPAC, authors of  
papers appear to be ignoring them.  A survey of recent publications in prominent polymer journals, as well 
as encyclopedias, shows that at least 50% of the structures drawn are incorrect.  Furthermore, polymer 
names, when accompanying structure-based representations, are either incorrect or source-based.  A 
campaign is underway in IUPAC to tackle this issue.  One very important approach proposed is to try to 
persuade editors of journals to impose polymer structural representation and nomenclature standards on 
papers submitted for publication. This will be discussed at the Nomenclature Committee meeting on 
Monday, March 27th; individual Nomenclature Committee members can also contribute to this effort.

The topic of  ³SRUs: Using the Rules² is critical to maintenance of worldwide standards; to this end, this 
article will be printed also in Germany in Macromol. Chem. Phys., courtesy of Dr. Ingrid Meisel (IUPAC 
member). Also, Wilks is negotiating with publishers of prominent polymer journals in China, Hungary, 
Russia, and Turkey in an effort to get this article published in Chinese, Hungarian, Russian, and Turkish 
so that non-English speaking scientists will have better access to it.  Prof. Javier Macossay (UANL , 
Monterrey, Mexico; Nomenclature Committee member) will translate it into Spanish, and he is searching for 
suitable Central and South American journals for publication. Translation/publication in other countries is 
being pursued.

In the last report, it was stated that Wilks had written letters to publishers of scientific books and 
encyclopedias to suggest that, if their publications contain articles on polymers but nothing on polymer 
nomenclature, addition of suitable articles on this subject should be considered for future publications or 
revisions.  One response only was received directly from McGraw Hill; the writer stated that he would 
contact Wilks later, but no further letters were received.  However, perhaps as a result of the letters sent out, 
Wilks was approached in October, 1999 by Wiley-VCH, Germany, with a major project: act as editor of a 
book entitled ³Industrial Polymers Handbook². This project is nearly complete, and Wilks has written a 
chapter on polymer nomenclature for inclusion in the book.

Following up on Ray Ottenbrite¹s suggestion that the CAS version of the rules for identifying, orienting, 
and naming Structural Repeating Units be made available on the web, Wilks wrote to Dr. David 
Weisgerber at CAS.  CAS agreed to make Section 222 of Appendix IV of the Index Guide available on the 
web.  Section 222 is now accessible at: http://www.cas.org/EO/polymers.pdf.

At the invitation of Prof. Otto Vogl, Wilks wrote an extensive paper entitled ³Polymer Nomenclature: The 
Controversy Between Source-Based And Structure-Based Representations (A Personal Perspective)²; this is 
expected to appear in the first copy of ³Progress in Polymer Science² to issue in 2000.

Four Committee members (Fox, Metanomski, Wilks, and Work) continue to contribute to projects of the 
IUPAC Commission on Macromolecular Nomenclature.  Topics in various stages of development, for 
which they are directly responsible, include: 

_ Definitions of Terms Related to Polymer Blends and Multi-Phase Polymeric Materials (Project 24/93)
_ Nomenclature for Threaded Macrocyclic Molecules (Catenanes & Rotaxanes) (Feasibility Study F-20) 
_ Glossary of Polymer Class Names (Project 30/97)
_ Source-Based Nomenclature for Modified Polymers (Project 33/99)
_ Structure-Based Nomenclature for Cyclic Macromolecules (Project 29/97)

Project 33/99 (4th item above) was circulated to IUPAC members; Prof. Tatsuki Kitayama made 
suggestions, which will be reviewed critically for possible incorporation into the next version to be 
discussed at the IUPAC meeting in Warsaw in July, 2000.
Project 29/97 (5th item above) is still active; the Schultz/Wilks version of the Cyclic Macromolecules 
Project, numbered pro tem 29/97A, and Fox¹s version (29/97), was circulated in December, 1999 to the 
IUPAC Commission IV.1 working party for their consideration.  No comments were received; a combined 
document that incorporates the best features of these two versions will be discussed at the IUPAC meeting 
in Warsaw in July, 2000.

The 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. 

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