Title: deterioration
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - deterioration
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.13902
Status: current

Definition
Deleterious alteration of a material in quality, serviceability, or vigor.

Notes
1) Deterioration can result from physical and/or chemical phenomena.
2) Deterioration is connected to a loss of performances and thus to the function, whereas degradation is connected with a loss of properties.
3) Polymer deterioration is more general than polymer degradation, which reflects loss of properties resulting from chemical cleavage of macromolecules only.

Related Term
- polymer degradation: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13890

Source
- PAC, 2012, 84, 377. 'Terminology for biorelated polymers and applications (IUPAC Recommendations 2012)' on page 389 (https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REC-10-12-04)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13902/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13902/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13902/xml

Citation: Citation: 'deterioration' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.13902
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Accessed: 2026-08-10T01:50:09+00:00