Polymer Formers - FIZ Karlsruhe

Polymer Indexing
System Description
5
Overview of the enhanced system
The structure of the Enhanced Polymer Index follows that of the old systems in many ways.
The old codes have always been divided into a number of areas of interest, e.g. monomers and
condensants, additives, applications and so forth. Basically similar divisions are retained in
the new system, in the form of “Facets”.
An important primary division, which has been reinforced in the enhanced code, is the separation
of chemical and non-chemical information. There are a few terms in existence in the old
code which bridge this division, e.g. “carbon black filler”, Key Serial (KS) 2217 and there is a
great temptation to create more terms of this type, since they solve specific indexing and
searching problems very neatly in the short term. Unfortunately, it is not a strategy that can
work with large numbers of substances and large numbers of possible activities or functions,
so the separation between the chemical and non-chemical areas has been rigorously enforced
(e.g. carbon black filler is now Carbon black, R05085 and Filler, A237, linked together).
Therefore, there are two basic sections of the code, the Structural section and the Non-structural
section, each of which is further subdivided into Facets as described below:
Structural Section
The structural section contains all the chemical information. The following facets make up
the structural section:
Polymer Formers
Chemicals
Natural Polymers
Polymer Types
Modified Polymers
Chemical Aspects
Polymer Formers
The Polymer Formers facet contains concepts for monomers and condensants such as Ethylene,
Methyl methacrylate, Propylene oxide, Phosgene. These specific compounds are represented
by Specific Compound Numbers (SCN). This facet also contains generic terms for
broad types of chemicals used in polymer manufacture, such as Acrylics. These generic
concepts are represented by codes of the format Gnnnn. All of the specific compounds within
this facet are arranged hierarchically.
Some compounds in this facet can also be found in the Chemicals facet, if they are likely to
function as both polymer formers and as additives or catalysts. Examples of these are Tetrahydrofuran
and Styrene. The same Specific Compound Number (SCN) or code is used in
both occurrences in these cases. The division between Polymer Formers and Chemicals has
been made in order to retain the hierarchical structure of the Polymer Formers facet.