Polymers and plastics dominate our rapidly developing daily needs and show enormous potential for the development of new technologies. The future of polymer chemistry will be influenced by the elaboration of new functional polymers. At the beginning of the application of synthetic materials, naturally occurring polymers as cellulose or polyisoprene were simply modified, for example by esterification or cross-linking to obtain the desired properties. Nowadays, the development of various functional polymers is becoming increasingly important in specific areas of application. In terms of technical applications, functional polymers are important, for example in the fields of optics, electronics or catalysis. They are also widely used for analytical devices, (e.g. columns for chromatography), for membranes and in the solid phase synthesis of peptides and oligonucleotides.