Title: polyalkylene
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - polyalkylene
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.15265
Status: current

Definition
Polymer composed of macromolecules containing exclusively alkane-α,ω-diyl (formerly alkylene) constitutional repeating units: \[\ce{-[-CR^{1}R^{2}\bond{-}]_{n}\bond{-}}\] where \(\ce{R^1}\) and \(\ce{R^2}\) are each hydrogen, alkyl, or cycloalkyl.



Note
Polyolefins are the most common polyalkylenes.

Related Term
- Polyolefins: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/15255

Source
- PAC, 2009, 81, 1131. 'Glossary of class names of polymers based on chemical structure and molecular architecture (IUPAC Recommendations 2009)' on page 1147 (https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REC-08-01-30)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/15265/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/15265/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/15265/xml

Citation: Citation: 'polyalkylene' 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.15265
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Accessed: 2026-04-20T13:23:43+00:00