Grafting and Other Polymer Modifications

Natural Rubber and Synthetic Polyisoprene Polybutadiene and Its Copolymers Polyisobutylene and Its Copolymers Ethylene-Propylene Copolymers and Terpolymers Polychloroprene Silicone Elastomers Fluorocarbon Elastomers Fluorosilicone Elastomers Electron Beam Processing of Liquid Systems Grafting and Other Polymer Modifications... 

In dentistry, silicones are primarily used as dental-impression materials where chemical- and bioinertness are critical, and, thus, thoroughly evaluated.546 The development of a method for the detection of antibodies to silicones has been reviewed,547 as the search for novel silicone biomaterials continues. Thus, aromatic polyamide-silicone resins have been reviewed as a new class of biomaterials.548 In a short review, the comparison of silicones with their major competitor in biomaterials, polyurethanes, has been conducted.549 But silicones are also used in the modification of polyurethanes and other polymers via co-polymerization, formation of IPNs, blending, or functionalization by grafting, affecting both bulk and surface characteristics of the materials, as discussed in the recent reviews.550-552 A number of papers deal specifically with surface modification of silicones for medical applications, as described in a recent reference.555 The role of silicones in biodegradable polyurethane co-polymers,554 and in other hydrolytically degradable co-polymers,555 was recently studied. 

In their turn, polyolefins including chlorinated PE, chlorosulfonated PE, and other polymers can be flame retarded by (1) structural modification by halogena-tion (for example, elastomers such as EPDM), graft copolymerization with chloroethylvinylphosphate, allyltrichloroacetate, etc., obtaining the halogenated... 

Polyepichlorohydrin (PECH) is well known as a reactive elastomer. Displacement at the carbon-chlorine bond of PECH has been accomplished with a wide variety of nucleophilic reagents, for the purposes of polymer modification, grafting and crosslinking (1, 2). On the other hand, the PECH structure (1) is hardly optimal from the point of view of its reactivity as a substrate for nucleophilic... 

This book contains papers presented at the symposium on Polymer Modification held at the National American Chemical Society Meeting in Orlando, Florida, August, 1996. The chemistry presented is broad ranging, and includes grafting and chemical oxidation reactions, and many other chemical modifications. 

Other methods of stabilization include chemical or carbohydrate modification of enzymes. Modifications of reactive groups on proteins without insolubilization has been used to enhance stability in solution. Grafting of polysaccharides or synthetic polymers, alkalation, acetylation and amino acid modification have all been reported (5)... 

The chief reason for the interest in graft copolymers originates from the incompatibility between polymer chains of different chemical nature. Intramolecular phase separation results, because grafts and backbone repell each other, and these compounds exhibit a marked tendency to form mesomorphic phases like block copolymers and soaps do. When these species are mixed with a solvent that exhibits a preferential affinity for one of the components (grafts or backbone) the incompatibility may be enhanced. This intramolecular phase separation has led to a number of applications. If small amounts of a graft copolymer are included into a homopolymer of the same nature as the grafts (or the backbone), surface modifications can result as described below. 

By chemical modification of the silica surface it has become possible to design new highly-selective adsorbents and catalysts, active polymer fillers, efficient thickeners of dispersive media. Interest in the modified silicas, in particular, in the activated matrices based on functional organosilicas has quickened in the past few years as a result of the favorable prospects for their application for various kinds of chromatographic separation, preparation of grafted metal complex catalysts, immobilized enzymes and other biologically active compounds [1]. 

---