Polymers containing metals and metal-like atoms are essential materials for the extended opportunities and demands of the 21st century. This book describes the synthesis of some of these polymers and their potential application in many fields such as materials, biomedicine, engineering, communications, and ceramics.

Zusammenfassung
Polymeric materials of the 21st century often contain atoms that are not present in traditional polymers. Polymers containing nontraditional atoms are now of interest because of their unique properties. This book demonstrates the breadth of these properties and some of the specialized analytical techniques that have been developed to characterize them. Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7 emphasize the emerging special properties of mate- als dealing with the transmission of light for the purpose of communication, as well as other efforts. Later chapters deal with the use of materials in treating a variety of disease-causing microbesincluding viruses responsible for pandemic herpes and the common cold (Chapter 8), cancers (Chapter 11), and bacterial infections (Chapter 17). The interaction of these materials for future biological investigations is investigated in Chapters 5 and 6. Chapter 12 provides a comprehensive review of the application of Mössbauer spectroscopy to metal-containing polymers and Chapter 13 reviews the application of a new mass spectrometry technique. The use of metal-containing polymers as catalysts is described in Chapters 1, 9, and 10. Their use as precursors for advanced ceramics (Chapter 14), high temperature materials (Chapter 15), and flame reta- ants (Chapter 16) is also discussed. The unusual property of selected materials to spontaneously form fibers is described in Chapter 18.

Inhalt
Synthetic Versatility and Structural Modularity in Organometallic Polymers.- Hyperbranched Polymers Containing Transition Metals: Synthetic Pathways and Potential Applications.- Transition Metal ?-Acetylide Polymers Containing Main Group Elements in the Main Chain: Synthesis, Light Emission and Optoelectronic Applications.- The Spectroscopy and Photophysical Behavior of Diphosphine- and Diisocyanide-Containing Coordination and Organometallic Oligomers and Polymers: Focus on Palladium and Platinum, Copper, Silver, and Gold.- Metal Binding Studies of Ferrocene Peptides in Solution.- Metal Ion Binding to Ferrocene Peptide Dendrimer Films.- Iron-Containing Polymers with Azo Dyes in their Side Chains or Backbones.- Cisplatin Derivatives as Antiviral Agents.- Vanadocene-Containing Polymers.- Hafnium-Containing Nanocomposites.- Nanoscale Dendrimer-Platinum Conjugates as Multivalent Antitumor Drugs.- Mössbauer Spectroscopy and Organotin Polymers.- Fundamentals of Fragmentation Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Mass Spectrometry.- Borazine Based Preceramic Polymers for Advanced BN Materials.- Recent Advances in High-Temperature Network Polymers of Carboranylenesiloxanes and Silarylene-Siloxanes.- Antimony-Containing Polymers.- Bacterial Inhibition by Organotin-Containing Polymers.- Polymeric Organotin Fibers.