Exploiting the Bulk Properties of Polymers

The control over polymer structure provided by ROMP provides a means to vary the bulk properties of materials. By changing the bulk properties, such as elasticity, hydration, and viscosity, materials can be tuned for specific biological 

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The ability to probe surfaces using in situ SERS can be exploited in polymer chemistry to characterise the surface of polymers for comparison with the bulk properties and to study polymer-metal composites such as adhesives and coatings. Interactions between adhesives and metal polymeric surfaces have been investigated [437]. The applicability of SERS to polymer surfaces has also been reported in a study on poly-/ -nitrostyrene [438], and in another study on the effects of chromic/sulfuric acid etching on PE films [439]. The desired surface sensitivity... 

Within the context of proteins as polymer materials the number is still further limited, since only very few are available in sufficient bulk at low extraction cost to consider post-processing them into useful materials. More particularly, the fibrous proteins, such as collagen, certain plant proteins such as gluten, the component of wheat responsible for giving the elastic properties to bread doughs, and proteins produced from soy have been exploited to a limited degree, as we shall see below. In recent years there has also been renewed interest in fibrous silk proteins, from silk worms, spiders (as web-silk) and also from bioengineering routes. 

An example of this approach is represented by the growth of 3-D coordination polymers with SCO properties via stepwise adsorption reactions for multilayer films based entirely on intra- and interlayer coordination bonds Fe(pyrazine) [Pt(CN) ] [218, 219], Indeed, after functionalization of the surface with the appropriate anchoring layer the coordination polymer is built in a stepwise fashion, alternating the metal ion (Fe "), the platinum salt ([Pt(CN) ] ), and pyrazine. The polymer shows many interesting properties, with the SCO transition accompanied by a variation in the dielectric constant of the material accompanied by a room temperature hysteresis of the dielectric constants. This dielectric hysteretic property may be useful in building molecular memory devices that can store information by high- and low-capacitance states. What must be remarked here is that these appealing properties cannot be exploited in bulk materials, but only in thin films. 

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