Abstract
Polymers are synthetic macromolecules, which have a relatively simple structure, because they consist of identical constitutional repeating units. The molecular mass distribution (MMD) informs about the average molecular size and describes how regular (or irregular) the molecular size is. The MMD may vary greatly depending on the method of synthesis of the polymer. Chemical structure (CS) and MMD, the two fundamental characteristics, determine all the properties of the polymer. In a direct way, they determine the cohesive forces, the packing density (and potential crystallinity), and the molecular mobility (with phase transitions). In a more indirect way, they control the morphology and the relaxation phenomena, that is, the total behavior of the polymer. This chapter discusses the main aspects of polymer typology—the chemical structure, the molecular weight distribution, the phase transition temperatures, the morphology, and the relaxation phenomena. The chapter provides a short survey on multicomponent polymer systems.
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