ABSTRACT
The great interest in telechelic polymers resides in the fact that polymers can be used, generally together with suitable linking agents, to carry out three important operations. The three operations are chain extension of short chains to long ones by means of bifunctional linking agents, formation of networks by use of multifunctional linking agents, and formation of block copolymers by combination of telechelics with different backbones. Theoretically, all polymers can be considered to be telechelic, provided one can find a reaction that is selective for the chain ends of the polymer, in other words, provided a given reagent is able to distinguish the end-groups from the main chain. The functionality of the reactive end-group itself is another important parameter that will play a primordial role in the potential uses of the telechelic polymer. A linear polyester in which all polymer molecules have one hydroxyl and one carboxyl end-group may again be considered as a telechelic.
