Number: 2006-004-1-400
Title: Recommendations on the abbreviated
terms of polymers
Task Group
Chairmen: Jiasong
He and David Tabak
Members:
Karl-Heinz Hellwich , Michael
Hess, Kazuyuki Horie,
Jaroslav Kahovec,
Tatsuki Kitayama,
Pavel Kratochvíl,
Ingrid Meisel, Itaru
Mita, Stanislaw
Slomkowski, Michel
Vert, and W. J. Work
Objective:
To provide recommendations or guidelines regarding the use of abbreviations
and abbreviated terms for the names of polymers and polymeric materials.
Description:
Abbreviated terms for polymers are very important to avoid repetition
of lengthy polymer names, not only for the authors of articles,
but also for the readers and the editors of journals. Industrial
people use a well-established ISO list of abbreviated terms, but
it contains only about a hundred items (116 in ISO 1043-1, the third
edition in 2001), selected on the basis of the scale of production
mainly. On the other hand, the academic journals in the polymer
field treat several hundreds of polymers annually, including new
polymers, some with complicated structures. Thus, it is almost impossible
to derive a systematic and unique abbreviated term from a polymer
name while maintaining one-to-one correspondence between the two
(as observed in the ISO list) in order to make the abbreviation
self-standing.
In the present project, which aims at
the use of abbreviated terms in academic journals, it will be suggested
to authors that in the first instance they use their own abbreviated
terms and define them when they appear for the first time in their
articles. However, in order to minimize any difference of the abbreviated
terms of the same polymer from one author to another, a small number
of rules, recommendations and suggestions will be proposed for making
an abbreviated term from an authentic polymer name. Typically, in
the case of homopolymers, many of the abbreviations that will be
recommended are those given by ISO but in the case of copolymers,
an abbreviated term such as P(A/B/S) is recommended instead of ABS
used by ISO. It shows that the polymer is a copolymer consisting
of three monomers and keeps a good correspondence with the polymer
name poly(acrylonitrile-co-butadiene-co-styrene). As reference,
a complete list of abbreviated terms in ISO 1043-1 will be attached
in our document.