Introduction to smart polymers and their applications

AGUILAR and J. SAN ROMAn, Institute of Polymer Science and Technology (ICTP-CSIC), Spain and Networking Biomedical Research Center in Bioengineering, Biomaterials and 

Abstract The scientific community tries to mimic nature in the way that living organisms adopt their behavior as a function of environmental conditions to improve survival. In this sense, smart polymers offer materials that respond to numerous stimuli (temperature, pH, electric and magnetic fields, light intensity, biological molecules, etc.), and scientists must devise the best way to apply them in all research areas. This chapter comprehensively summarizes the content of this book which tries to provide a wide overview of smart polymers and the most interesting applications developed recently. 

Key words smart polymers, stimuh-responsive polymers, sensitive polymers, applications. 

Moreover, most polymers can easily be functionalized by pre-polymerization (Guillerm et al, 2012) or post-polymerization (Arnold et al, 2012) methods incorporating functional molecules to the structure, such as biological receptors (Shakya et al, 2010). Therefore, polymer scientists have a wide range of possibilities in terms of polymer chemical structures, polymer architectures and polymer modifications to develop an infinite number of applications for these smart materials (Stuart ef ai, 2010). 

2012) and poly(phosphoester)s (Hiranek et aL,2009) also present temperature-responsive behavior and are reviewed in this book. 

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The balance between hydrophobic/hydrophilic interactions plays a major role in determining the LCST behaviour of the thermosensitive polymers and their gels, the introduction of the hydrophobic substituents into the polymer system can cause a dramatic decrease of the critical temperature (Tc). Due to the fact that it is not possible to cool the desired microsystem only smart polymers with Tc higher than room temperature are applicable. A positive charge on the stilbazolium and acridizinium ion, should compensate for its hydrophobic character. Hence, the modification of the prepolymers with the chromophore should not lead to a significant decrease of Tc-... 

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