ABSTRACT
In this article chemical crosslinking reactions are dealt with respect to network formation starting from individual monomeric, oligomeric or polymeric molecules. Any type of chemical reaction of functional groups may be used for the purpose of polymer network formation that allows for almost quantitative conversion of these functionalities; if not, considerable difficulties with respect to network stability, long term stability of physical properties of the network, and chemical transformation of unreacted functionalities may arise. Since the chemical and physical properties of a respective polymer network strongly depend on the chemical nature of the monomeric units in the chains and also depend on the crosslink density, a wide variety of physical properties of crosslinked polymeric materials is available and considerable technological input is made to design the network in order to match the demands.
