Polymeric Materials Composition, Uses and Applications

Polymers play an integral role in modem society. Over 150 million tonnes are made annually. The scale of production varies enormously from a 200,000 tonnes per annum continuous operational plant for commodity polymers to a batch process producing a few kilograms of a specialised polymer (advanced material). 

Comprehensive Analytical Chemistry, Volume 53 ISSN 0166-526X, DOI 10.1016/S0166-526X(08)00403-0 

Although some applications use these commodity polymers as structural components, their principal use is in packaging, e.g., films, bottles and containers. They are each made on a scale of over 10 million tonnes annually. 

Engineering polymers are often used as a replacement for wood and metals. Examples include polyamides (PA), often called nylons, polyesters (saturated and unsaturated), aromatic polycarbonates (PCs), polyoxymethylenes (POMs), polyacrylates, polyphenylene oxide (PPO), styrene copolymers, e.g., styrene/ acrylonitrile (SAN) and acrylonitrile/butadiene/styrene (ABS). Many of these polymers are produced as copolymers or used as blends and are each manufactured worldwide on the 1 million tonne scale. 

Advanced materials can be used in extreme conditions, e.g., high temperatures ( 200°C), severe chemical environments (e.g., polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) with concentrated H2SO4). They are often used as a critical component in a workpiece and are frequently reinforced with glass, carbon or aramid (e.g., Kevlar ) fibres. 

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Davis, J. R., ed. 2003. Handbook of Materials for Medical Devices. Materials Park, OH ASM International. This work provides a review of the properties, processing, and selection of materials used in the environment of the human body. Among the application areas described are orthopedics (hips, knees, and spinal and fracture fixation), cardiology (stents, heart valves, pacemakers), surgical instruments, and restorative dentistry. Materials discussed include metals and alloys, ceramics, glasses, and glass-ceramics, polymeric materials, composites, coatings, and adhesives and cements. 

Bart and co-workers [25] and others [34, 101, 163] have reviewed the application of TG-MS for the study of polymeric materials, thermoplastics, thermosets and elastomers. This thermoanalytical technique is used for the structural characterisation of homopolymers, copolymers, polymeric blends and composites and finds application in the detection of monomeric residuals, solvents, additives, (toxic) degradation products, etc. Information is... 

Polymeric materials are used In all solar technologies. In addition to such conventional applications as adhesives, coatings, moisture barriers, electrical and thermal Insulation, and structural members, polymers are used as optical components In solar systems. Mirrors on parabolic troughs are made up of metallized fluoropolymers and acrylics. Commercial flat-plate collectors are glazed with fluoropolymers and ultraviolet-stabilized polyester/ glass fiber composites. Photovoltaic (PV) cell arrays are encap-... 

The UV-cured film of IV-vinyl p30 rolidone has been used as a potential bioadhesive wound-dressing matrix when blended with other polymeric materials. Skin covers and wound dressings made of PVA and PVP were produced with or without polysaccharides by the help of the gamma irradiation technique. Because of its biocompatibility and nontoxicity, PVP was also chosen as the base material for a drug-loading device. Drug release from such membrane was found to depend on the crosslinking density, composition, and membrane thickness. On the other hand, PVP has been used as a carrier in electrospun fiber applications. 

The flame retardants are chemical substances used in various products such as plastics, textiles, and furnishing foam to reduce their fire hazards by interfering with the composition of the polymeric materials. The use of polymeric materials as adhesives or as organic composites, for naval, aeronautic or electronic applications, becomes more and more important. However, one of the most important disadvantages of these materials concerns is their thermal and fire resistance behaviors (Aseeva Zaikov 1985). 

After brief discussion of the state-of-the-art of modern Py-GC/MS, some most recent applications for stixictural and compositional chai acterization of polymeric materials are described in detail. These include microstixictural studies on sequence distributions of copolymers, stereoregularity and end group chai acterization for various vinyl-type polymers such as polystyrene and polymethyl methacrylate by use of conventional analytical pyrolysis. 

Whereas for organic SEC column technology a particular type of bead (PS/ DVB) is used almost universally, in the field of aqueous SEC there have been a variety of approaches to derive polymeric beads suitable for the application. For this reason there is more secrecy about the chemical composition of the packing materials and columns produced by different manufacturers. 

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