05396 IUPAC Gold Book - ring-opening polymerization 10.1351/goldbook.R05396 R05396 current 1 A polymerization in which a cyclic monomer yields a monomeric unit which is acyclic or contains fewer cycles than the monomer. If the monomer is polycyclic, the opening of a single ring is sufficient to classify the reaction as ring-opening polymerization. monomer https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/M04017 monomeric unit https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/M04018 polymerization https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/P04740 PAC, 1996, 68, 2287. 'Glossary of basic terms in polymer science (IUPAC Recommendations 1996)' on page 2308 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac199668122287) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/R05396/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/R05396/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/R05396/plain Citation: 'ring-opening polymerization' 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.R05396 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. 2026-06-30T20:48:47+00:00