The name is absent

is the styrene butadiene rubber (SBR), widely used in tires, shoe heels and soles,
and gaskets. SBR is classified as a random or statistical copolymer owing to the
random distribution of styrene and butadiene monomers along the polymer chain.
Another important class of copolymers is the block copolymers in which monomers of
a given type are grouped into polymerized sequences, or “blocks”, along the polymer
chain. For, example styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS) is a triblock copolymer with
three blocks: polystyrene block followed by a central block of polybutadiene followed
by another polystyrene block. Interestingly, random and block copolymers have very
different properties, even when composed of the same two monomers. For example,
SBS has far superior elastic recovery characteristics than SBR. This feature has been
highly exploited in the current polymer R&D.

The progress in polymer science and technology has made possible the design
of polymers at the molecular level. It is possible to create polymers with a variety
of chain topologies and sequence of monomers along the chain. Hence, rather than
seeking advanced polymeric materials based on new monomers, scientists are creat-
ing new polymeric materials from commodity/low-cost monomers just by varying the
molecular architectures. This rapid development of new synthetic techniques to cre-
ate wide varieties of polymer architectures and new types of block copolymers, leads
to the problem of handling a large design space. Although, experimental methods
are a powerful tool to tackle this design space and test if the new materials meet
the required mechanical and thermodynamic properties, experimental screening is

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