the present invention will be described simplistically stated the polymer herein described comprises a plurality of reactive groups being carboxylates or carboxylic acid groups the reactive group is directly bonded to the carbon backbone in the preferred embodiment a reactive group is bound to a separate carbon atom in other words where there are two reactive groups each reactive group is coupled to one of two carbon atoms with in the case of more than one reactive groups the reactive groups not being coupled to the same carbon atom the initial or primary component for the synthesis is a commonly available previously described component the primary component may be prepared as follows 1 the polycarboxylate is produced from the corresponding polyanhydride the polyanhydride is produced by a process that is described and disclosed in u s pat no 3 560 456 issued to s m hazen and w j heilman entitled u201c process of forming copolymers of maleic anhydride and an aliphatic olefin having from 16 to 18 carbon atoms u201d the description of the process as described in the 39 456 patent is incorporated herein by reference 2 the polycarboxylate is produced from the polyanhydride by the following procedure 10 grams of the polyanhydride pa 18 are dissolved in 200 ml of 4m naoh and stirred at 85 degrees centigrade for 2 hours the reaction mixture is cooled the ph adjusted to 6 to 6 5 and vacuum filtered the solid polymer is washed with cold analytical grade methanol and dried under vacuum 3 there are.