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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