ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on polymer structures formed from the inclusion of fragments derived from two or more vinyl-intense reactants. While the mechanism of copolymerization is similar to that discussed for the polymerization of one reactant (homopolymerization), the reactivities of monomers may differ when more than one is present in the feed, that is, reaction mixture. While copolymers may be produced by step reaction polymerization or by chain reaction polymerization, the chapter focuses on those produced by the chain free radical process. One of the first commercial copolymers, introduced in 1928, was made up of vinyl chloride (VC) (87") and vinyl acetate (VAc) (13") (Vinylite). Since the presence of the VAc mers disrupted the regular structure of poly(VC) (PVC), the copolymer was more flexible and more soluble than PVC itself. While block copolymers do not occur naturally, synthetic block copolymers have been prepared by all known classical polymerization techniques.
