This volume in the book series New Concepts in Polymer Science deals with the damaging effects, which microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, etc. can have on a range of materials in machinery. The book aims to provide theoretical notions about the mechanisms of material damaging by microorganisms under operation conditions as well as to give recommendations for protection of technical articles and machinery. This monograph consists of the following topics: finding of kinetic regularities, analytical models and quantitative indices for stages material biodamaging; study of influence of properties of materials, features of microorganisms, temperature, humidity and other factors on interaction between a material and a biodestructor; and, compilation of guidelines to determine and forecast biological resistance (bioresistance) of materials, development of means and methods for their protection as well as estimates of their efficiency. This monograph will be of value and interest to researchers and engineers working in fields in which materials are subject to active microbiological aging and destruction.

The main goal of this book is to describe the synthesis and properties of low and high-molecular compounds on the quantitative level. Special attention was given to composition materials based on polymers and dispersed wood, the mechanism of HCL elimination reactions via a four-centre transition state during PVC thermal destruction, swelling of the filled polymer compositions, structure and properties of combined systems based on butadiene-nitrile and ternary ethylene-propylene elastomers, intensification mass transfer processes in fast liquid-phase chemical reactions, the examples of hetero-nanophase kinetic description of photochemical reactions, the nanometric particle-like local structures and their implications in polymer behaviour, fractal physical chemistry of polymer solutions, modification of polycyanurates by polyethers, polyesters and polyurethanes, hybrid and interpenetrating polymer networks. This collection includes articles devoted to production of polymers, polymeric mixtures, composite and filled polymers, questions of expanding lifetime of polymeric articles, biologically active substances, modification of polymers and polymer-analogous transformations, fractal physical chemistry of polymer solutions, the study of structural transformations in polymers and some other questions. Of special attention are also production of pure substances and protection of the environment.

No matter how far Humanity advanced in its successes the problems of health and death will always exist. However, it is possible to postpone old age and prolong life, and it is performed successfully. In ancient Rome the average age was 15-18 years. Today in Japan it reaches 77-79 years. So what can the science of polymers do in solving this problem? Do high molecular compounds (natural and artificial) possess any reserves for solving this problem? This book discusses the problems of the polymer interaction with biologically active and model media, biodegradation biodetrioration, prognosing the time of reliable exploitation of polymers for medical purposes, polymer application in surgery, etc. Also discussed is the role of kinetics in prognosis of agriculture production quality.

This book presents investigation results of thermal transformations in thermoresistant polymers: polysulfones, polyester-imides, aliphatic-aromatic polyimides and polyamides, liquid-crystal aromatic co-polyesters, polyphenylquinoxalines at temperatures of materials and articles processing and operation. An important result of investigations is the determination of thermooxidative degradation regularities for aliphatic-aromatic heterochain polymers and description of the degradation mechanism. The applied aspect of this work is the approach to stabilization of thermoresistant polymers and composite materials derived from them using additives and analysis of the mechanism of high-temperature inhibited oxidation. The book presents results which have been obtained through many years of research until recently, mostly obtained by scientists of G.S. Petrov Research Institute of Polymeric Materials (Moscow, Russia) aEURO" one of the leading Institutes in this branch - which have not been available in international scientific publications before.