RECENT STUDIES AIMED AT THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLYMER-SUPPORTED REACTANTS WITH IMPROVED ACCESSIBILITY AND CAPACITY

Recent studies aimed at the development of polymer-supported reactants with improved accessibility and capacity are reviewed. Since an increase in accessibility usually leads to a decrease in capacity and vice versa, the optimisation of the performance of a polymer-supported reactant often involves a compromise. This review is divided into two main parts. The first deals with improvements in traditional styrene-divinylbenzene copolymer beads including the introduction of surface functional groups, the preparation of grafts from preformed crosslinked polymers, and also new ways of producing extremely porous particles. The second part deals with recent studies of "pellicular resins" in which a thin layer of a functional polymer is grafted onto an inert core that may be organic, e.g., a polyolefin, or inorganic, e.g., silica.