Chemical composition and architecture are two key factors that control the physical and material properties of polymers. Some of the more unusual and intriguing polymer architectures are the polycatenanes, which are a class of polymers that contain mechanically interlocked rings. Since the development of high yielding synthetic routes to catenanes, there has been an interest in accessing their polymeric counterparts, primarily on account of the unique conformations and degrees of freedom offered by non-bonded interlocked rings. This has lead to the synthesis of a wide variety of polycatenane architectures and to studies aimed at developing structure–property relationships of these interesting materials. In this review, we provide an overview of the field of polycatenanes, exploring synthesis, architecture, properties, simulation, and modelling, with a specific focus on some of the more recent developments.

中文翻译：

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聚链烷：合成、表征和物理理解

化学成分和结构是控制聚合物物理和材料性能的两个关键因素。一些更不寻常和有趣的聚合物结构是聚链烷，它是一类包含机械互锁环的聚合物。自从开发出高产的链烷合成路线以来，人们一直对获取它们的聚合物对应物感兴趣，这主要是因为非键合互锁环提供的独特构象和自由度。这导致了多种聚链烷结构的合成以及旨在开发这些有趣材料的结构-性能关系的研究。在这篇综述中，我们概述了聚链烷领域，探索了合成、架构、性质、模拟和建模，