Non-fouling applications

Table 9.2 Non-fouling applications of MPC-based polymers (2009-April 2013).

It is clear that the use of PC-based polymers for non-fouling applications is a very active, still developing, field of research which offers great promise for improved medical devices in general, as well as for specific applications as discussed in later sections. 

For biomedical applications, which will only be considered in this review, it could be mentioned that Kataoka and co-workers [327] prepared non-fouling surfaces by coating them with core-polymerized PEG-PLA block copolymer micelles having an aldehyde-ended PEG shell. 

Membrane technology applications today focus considerable interest on the continuous performance of a membrane. It is well known that fouling reduces the flux and changes the retention properties of membranes, which makes the process less economic. Characterization of protein fouling has been reviewed by Chan and Chen [1], Chen et al. [2, 3]. The goal would be a non-fouling process with a steady flux and retention. 

PEG (also known as poly(ethylene oxide)) is one of the most widely used materials in tissue engineering (Drury and Mooney 2003). As a result of its extreme hydrophilicity, PEG is highly resistant to protein adsorption and therefore works well as a non-fouling, non-immunogenic surface in a biological environment. This makes PEG materials a blank slate so that cellular interactions can be precisely controlled through added features (e.g., peptides). Eurthermore, because it is one of the few synthetic hydrophilic materials available, it has become a prime candidate for use in many soft tissue applications, where hydrogels are preferable to hard materials. 

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