Tailored Polymers and Applications

This book contains a selection of papers presented at APME '99 ( Third International Symposium on Advanced Polymers via Macromolecular Engineering --- Colonial Williamsburg, VA, USA, July/August 1999). The book focuses on the synthesis of targeted polymers with specific properties using macromolecular architecture. Various controlled polymerization techniques such as ionic, metathesis and recently developed 'living'/controlled polymerization and some of their combinations are covered. Polymers with different topologies such as block and graft copolymers, hyper branched polymers, heteroarm polymers, dentrimers, segmented networks and supramolecular systems are presented with emphasis on the special characteristics that influence their amphiphilic, liquid crystalline, complexation, thermo- and photosensitive and catalytic properties. The uses of such macromolecular structures in various fields such as surface modifiers, catalysts and coating and biomedical applications are also discussed.