Introduction

Abstract

For three reasons polycondensation is a polymerization process, which plays a unique role in the history of chemistry in general, and in the history of polymer science in particular. Polycondensation was the first polymer forming reaction sequence which existed on the early earth before living organisms appeared. It is clear from the experiments of Stuart Miller [1, 2] and other authors that whenever organic molecules were formed on earth, α-and ß-amino acids were formed together with α-hydroxy acids, such as glycolic and lactic acid. Heating and drying of their aqueous solutions might have yielded their oligomers and polymers. The second reason for the unique role of polycondensation is the fact that the first polymer synthesized in a laboratory (although not intentionally) was poly(D,L-lactic acid) which was obtained by heating of lactic acid in vacuo (see Sect. 2.1 in Chap. 2). The third reason is the fact that the first commercialized synthetic polymers, namely Novolac and Bakelite, were polycondensates (see Chap. 2).