Synthetic polymer composites

In their 2001 review on biomedical applications of polymer composites, Ramakr-ishna et al. [11] concluded that up to that date, medical doctors and surgeons were reluctant to use polymer composite materials in biomedical applications because of lack of long-term scientific data, as compared with the data available for monolithic materials such as metals and ceramics. Now, almost 10 years later, many applications have met the needs of the medical field and a plentiful of scientific data has been made available to the open literature. Time and again, reviews are written with respect to the efficiency of polymer composites in the biomedical field. 

The applications mostly vary from the orthopedic to the dental area of use. 

---

Watanabe S, Kato H, Shimizu Y et al. (1981) Antibacterial biomaterials by immobilization of hen egg-white lysozyme onto collagen-synthetic polymer composites - histological-findings of immobilized lysozyme in the tissue of a different species. Artif Organs 5 309-309... 

Partap S, Hebb AK, Rehman I et al (2007) Formation of porous natural-synthetic polymer composites using emulsion templating and supercritical fluid assisted impregnation. Polym Bull 58 849-860... 

Natural leather is produced from the hides of animals by cross-linking the collagen protein contained in the hide. On the other hand, synthetic leathers are synthetic polymer composites with leatherlike properties. 

The chitin has limited applications besides such traditional purposes. Therefore, considerable efforts have been still devoted to compatibilization of chitin with synthetic polymers to provide cMtin-based new functional materials. As one of the possible applications of the present chitin nanofiber film, therefore, attempts were made to prepare the chitin nanoilber composite materials with synthetic polymers. Two kinds of approaches, that is, physical and chemical approaches have been considered to yield the polysaccharide-synthetic polymer composite materials (Figure 8). In former case, the polysaccharide and synthetic polymer chains construct material components by physical interaction in the composites, whereas the latter approach results in the formation covalent linkages between two polymer chains in the composites. 

FIGURE 8 Polysaccharide-synthetic polymer composite materials by blending and chemical bonding. 

S. Watanabe, Y. Shimizu, T. Teramatsu, T Murachi, T Hino, The in vitro and in vivo behavior of urokinase immobilized onto collagen-synthetic polymer composite material. Journal of Biomedical Materials Research 15 (4) (1981) 553-563. 

PP is very suitable for filling, reinforcing and blending. Compoimding PP with fibrous natural polymers of biomass origin is one of the most promising routes to create natural-synthetic polymer composites. The key question is whether they are cheap filled compounds or high value, reinforced composites. It depends on the cohesion, cooperation between the synthetic PP matrix and the natural fiber. 

The production of a variety of smaller molecules from some larger original molecules has fostered the use of pyrolysis as a (destmctive) sample preparation technique. As a result, capillary GC, MS, and FTIR spectroscopy may be used routinely for analysis of synthetic polymers, composites and other complex industrial materials. In pyrolysis experiments sample size and shape, homogeneity and contamination are important issues. Generally, 10-50 /u.g of sample is desirable for direct PyGC, and about twice that for direct PyETIR. 

Needless to mention, many types of the usual synthetic polymer composites are in use for decades now as matrices for several kinds of biomedical composite materials. Before the authors elaborate the progress made in the last decade with the conventional composites, for example, fiber-reinforced implants, they would... 

---