can be brought about by heating, irradiation, ultrasonics, or initiators. The initiation of the chain reaction can be observed most clearly with radical or ionic initiators. These are energy-rich compounds which can add suitable unsaturated compounds (monomers) and maintain the activated radical, or ionic, state so that further monomer molecules can be added in the same manner. For the individual steps of the growth reaction one needs only a relatively small activation energy and therefore through a single activation step (the actual initiation reaction) a large number of olefin molecules are converted, as is implied by the term “chain reaction”. Because very small amounts of the initiator bring about the formation of a large amount of polymeric material (1:1000 to 1:1000), it is possible to regard polymerization from a superficial point of view as a catalytic reaction. For this reason, the initiators used in polymerization reactions are often designated as polymerization catalysts, even though, in the strictest sense, they are not true catalysts because the polymerization initiator enters into the reaction as a real partner and can be found chemically bound in the reaction product ,i.e. ,the polymer, In addition to the ionic and radical initiators there are now metal complex initiators (which can be obtained, for example, by the reaction of titanium tetrachloride or titanium trichloride with aluminum alkyls), which play an important role in polymerization reactions (Ziegler catalysts) ,The mechanism of their catalytic action is not yet completely clear.

双键活化过程的引发剂反应，可以通过热、辐射、超声波或引发剂产生。用自由基型

或离子型引发剂引发链式反应可以很清楚地进行观察。这些是高能态的化合物，它们能够加成不饱和化合物（单体）并保持自由基或离子活性中心 以致单体可以以同样的方式进一步加成。对于增长反应的各个步骤，每一步仅需要相当少的活化能，因此通过一步简单的活化反应（即引发反应）即可将许多烯类单体分子转化成聚合物，这正如连锁反应这个术语的内涵那样。因为少量的引发剂引发形成大量的聚合物原料（1：1000～1：10000），从表面上看聚合反应很可能是催化反应。由于这个原因，通常把聚合反应的引发剂看作是聚合反应的引发剂，但是，严格地讲它们不是真正意义上的催化剂，因为聚合反应的催化剂进入到反应内部而成为一部分，同时可以在反应产物，既聚合物的末端发现。此外离子引发剂和自由基引发剂有的是金属络合物引发剂（例如，通过四氯化钛或三氯化钛与烷基铝的反应可以得到），Z引发剂在聚合反应中起到了重要作用，它们催化活动的机理还不是