Principles of Polymerization

Odian offers a comprehensive guide to polymer chemistry, covering nearly all the types of polymerization, exploring radical, ionic, step, and copolymerization mechanisms and kinetics in sufficient detail. Some recent advances in polymer synthesis are not covered, but book offers enough knowledge to have a good grasp of all aspects of polymerizations. A must read for anyone considering a career or education in polymer synthesis!

I took a course last year in Polymer Chemistry and this text was the standard text book. It was an amazingly great reference book. This book mainly target on Polymerization synthesis and characterization. If you are interested in the mechanical properties of polymer, you should look for other one. But this is a must for all polymer chemists and material scientists who are interested in polymer processing.

I have been using this book for several years, including a term where it was the primary text for a graduate-level Introduction to Polymers course. As textbooks go, I have found this one relatively easy to read, and the concepts easy to follow. It it quite comprehensive, but assumes an undergraduate background in organic and physical chemistry. Since the course, it has been a handy reference in my research, though, as someone else noted, it is lacking in respect to living polymerizations, particularly Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization. However, Odian's work remains one of the most useful textbooks from my graduate classes.

Encyclopedic and comprehensive, this text ought to be the sole reference work for undergrads and graduates in the field of polymer science.