This book is the first of a series providing a comprehensive resource on cationic polymerization. All three volumes are written in a manner that is easy to comprehend, even by undergraduate college students, and are designed to help the reader decipher an otherwise complex subject. Topics for each volume are presented in an order that build successively on material presented in prior books. The series is comprehensive, so even those who are well-versed in the discipline will find invaluable information in each volume. Through study of these books, the reader can become an expert in this subset of polymer science without ever having attended courses on the subject.

This first volume focuses on the most commercially-relevant technique: non-living polymerization of olefins. It provides a complete overview of methods (including those used industrially) that have been devised to effect such polymerizations, dating from the very inception of the technique through the present. From this, chemists can make educated choices on how to best design a polymerization system meeting their specific requirements. Mechanistic aspects of the chemistry are presented throughout the text with ample chemical drawings, and this information can help the reader develop new polymerization systems. This work also emphasizes improvements (many being reported for the first time) made to the green aspects of the cationic methodology, a facet of growing importance for today’s chemist. This is the only book on cationic polymerization that contains a section dedicated to experimental techniques. The reader can use the information contained within both to safely conduct their own bench-top to pilot plant scale experimentation.

The other volumes in the 3-part set are:
Vol 2: Thermodynamics/Kinetics/Spectral Properties; Vol 3: Living Polymerizations.