Some Recent Studies of Polymer Reactivity

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Abstract
The following aspects of polymer reactivity are discussed: (a) effects due to differences in the microenvironment of the polymer domain and the solvent; (b) effects due to spatial requirements of enzymatic attack on polymer side chains; (c) heterogeneous reactions of gel-bound functional groups with a reagent in a solution phase; and (d) the relation of the conformational mobility of a polymer and its low molecular weight analog. In considering reaction rates of polymeric reagents, it is useful to use as a point of departure the assumption that the chemical behavior of a functional group should, in principle, be independent of the size of the molecule to which it is attached. The causes which may lead to pronounced deviations between the reactivity of polymeric reagents and their analogs are reasonably well understood, and I have summarized previously the literature up to 1975 [1]. Here I should merely like to discuss some recent developments in this area.