15256 IUPAC Gold Book - polyvinyl acetal 10.1351/goldbook.15256 15256 current 1 Polymer prepared by acetalization of poly(vinyl alcohol) with an aldehyde. The name "polyvinyl acetal" is derived using both source- and structure-based principles: "polyvinyl" comes from the source polymer: poly(vinyl alcohol), and "acetal" indicates the structure of constitutional units that are present in the resulting modified polymer. This approach is reflected in commonly used trivial names of polyvinyl acetals given in the above examples below systematic names. A common polyvinyl acetal does not have the ideal structure shown above but it also contains a low fraction of unreacted hydroxy groups. PAC, 2009, 81, 1131. 'Glossary of class names of polymers based on chemical structure and molecular architecture (IUPAC Recommendations 2009)' on page 1143 (https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REC-08-01-30) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/15256/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/15256/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/15256/plain Citation: 'polyvinyl acetal' 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.15256 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