15255 IUPAC Gold Book - polyolefin 10.1351/goldbook.15255 15255 current 1 Polymer prepared from an olefin. A typical polyolefin macromolecule is derived from an alkene and is described by the monomeric unit: \(\ce{-CR^1R^2\bond{-}CH2\bond{-}}\), where \(\ce{R^1}\) and \(\ce{R^2}\) are hydrogen, alkyl, or cycloalkyl. Polyolefins with 1,2-disubstituted monomeric units \(\ce{-CHR^1\bond{-}CHR^2\bond{-}}\) are rather rare, owing to low thermodynamic stability of their main chains caused by steric effects of the substituents. The structure-based name of a polyolefin prepared from an alkene is a polyalkylene. polyalkylene https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/15265 PAC, 2009, 81, 1131. 'Glossary of class names of polymers based on chemical structure and molecular architecture (IUPAC Recommendations 2009)' on page 1142 (https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REC-08-01-30) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/15255/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/15255/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/15255/plain Citation: 'polyolefin' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.15255 The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. 2026-04-20T11:54:33+00:00