Chemistry and technology of polyamides

This chapter presents a comprehensive overview of the chemistry, process technology, and thermal and mechanical properties of hydrolytically prepared fully aliphatic and semiaromatic commercial polyamides (PAs). In addition, commercially available block copolyetheramides and the most important PA blends are discussed. A few molecular characterization methods, typically used for the characterization of PAs, are briefly discussed, as well as some physical phenomena very characteristic of PAs, such as the Brill transition and the odd–even effect in the melting points of a series of PAs. The applications of the wide variety of commercial PAs are discussed in terms of their properties.