Book excerpt: Monomers composed of carbon and hydrogen atoms are the simple building blocks that make up polyolefins - molecules which are extremely useful and which have an extraordinary range of properties and applications. How these monomer molecules are connected in the polymer chain defines the molecular architecture of polyolefins. Written by two world-renowned authors pooling their experience from industry and academia, this book adopts a unique engineering approach using elegant mathematical modeling techniques to relate polymerization conditions, reactor and catalyst type to polyolefin properties. Readers thus learn how to design and optimize polymerization conditions to produce polyolefins with a given microstructure, and how different types of reactors and processes are used to create the different products. Aimed at polymer chemists, plastics technologists, process engineers,the plastics industry, chemical engineers, materials scientists, and company libraries.