Motivated by a general concern on sustainability and environmental issues, a sparkling search for renewable-based polymers has grown exponentially in recent years. This search definitely spotlighted polyesters derived from 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid, among other polymers, as some of the most promising, especially due to the resemblance of this renewable monomer to the well-known petroleum-based terephthalic acid, as well as for the possibility of preparing innovative materials. The huge number of recent papers and patents about this family of polymers explore aspects such diverse as synthesis with other renewable-based monomers, leading to the preparation of materials with enhanced thermo-mechanical, biodegradability and liquid crystalline properties, among other features. Additional aspects pursued in such studies are innovation in the synthetic approaches or its optimisation; and also the development of applications for everyday-life objects like for example packaging materials, especially bottles, textiles, coating, toners, among many other uses. Despite this intense activity little has been reviewed recently about this unique family of polyesters, or derived polymers, as the only reviews on the subject date-back from the last century. In this perspective, the present appraisal aims at contributing to fulfil this literature gap, covering recent aspects related with challenges of developing polyesters, polyamides, or other polymers from 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid and their precursors. Emphasis is placed on monomer synthesis, polymerisation reactions, catalysts and applications.A tribute to 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid excellency and the myriad of novel polyesters, but also polyamides, among other polycondensates, is comprehensively done.

Polyesters from renewable resources are an expanding area with a burgeoning scientific activity, nevertheless little has been reviewed about this particular class of polymers. The present appraisal intends to contribute to fill this literature gap by reviewing recent aspects related to the most promising renewable-based polyesters. Emphasis will be placed on bio-based polyesters that, given their comparable properties, may replace polymers derived from fossil fuel feedstock, and on bio-based polyesters with completely innovative properties for novel applications. Furthermore, the sources of renewable monomers will also be reviewed, together with the most relevant eco-friendly synthetic approaches used in polycondensation reactions leading to polyesters.

Advanced drug delivery systems (DDS) present indubitable benefits for drug administration. Over the past three decades, new approaches have been suggested for the development of novel carriers for drug delivery. In this review, we describe general concepts and emerging research in this field based on multidisciplinary approaches aimed at creating personalized treatment for a broad range of highly prevalent diseases (e.g., cancer and diabetes). This review is composed of two parts. The first part provides an overview on currently available drug delivery technologies including a brief history on the development of these systems and some of the research strategies applied. The second part provides information about the most advanced drug delivery devices using stimuli-responsive polymers. Their synthesis using controlled-living radical polymerization strategy is described. In a near future it is predictable the appearance of new effective tailor-made DDS, resulting from knowledge of different interdisciplinary sciences, in a perspective of creating personalized medical solutions.

The four-body equations of Alt, Grassberger and Sandhas are solved, for the first time, for proton-3 He scattering including the Coulomb interaction between the three protons using the method of screening and renormalization as it was done recently for proton-deuteron scattering. Various realistic two-nucleon potentials are used. Large Coulomb effects are seen on all observables. Comparison with data at different energies shows large deviations in the proton analyzing power but quite reasonable agreement in other observables. The effect of nucleon-nucleon magnetic moment interaction and correlations between p-d and p-3 He analyzing powers are studied.PACS numbers: 21.30. -x, 21.45.+v, 24.70.+s, 25.10.+s Modern calculations of light nuclear systems A ≤ 12 are essential to our understanding of the force models that have been developed to describe how nucleons interact at low energies [1,2]. Of these nuclear systems, the four-nucleon (4N ) system is particularly important because it gives rise, experimentally, to the simplest set of nuclear reactions that shows the complexity of heavier systems and the Coulomb interaction manifest itself in new ways relative to what is observed in the threenucleon (3N ) system. Theoretically it is also important because with powerful numerical techniques and fast computers one can calculate not only bound state properties [3] but also scattering observables [4,5,6,7,8,9, 10] for a number of elastic, transfer and breakup reactions that place new challenges to our understanding of the underlying force models. The importance of scattering calculations also has to do with the possibility to probe states in the continuum associated with specific resonances, states of higher angular momentum than corresponding bound states, effects that depend on the spin orientation of the projectile and/or target, and threshold effects on the observables, among others.While the three-nucleon system has been extensively studied [11,12] through neutron-deuteron (nd) and proton-deuteron (pd) elastic scattering and breakup experiments, exact calculations using realistic force models as well as interactions derived from Effective Field Theory were restricted, for a long time, to the nd system due to limitations in including the Coulomb force in the description of pd scattering beyond low energy pd → pd and pd ↔ γ 3 He calculations [13,14] in the framework of the variational hyperspherical approach. The situation has now changed due to the work of Refs. [15,16] where calculations of pd → pd, pd → ppn, pd ↔ γ 3 He, γ 3 He → ppn, e 3 He → e ′ pd, and e 3 He → e ′ ppn were performed at energies ranging from 1 MeV in the center of mass (c.m.) system to the pion production threshold. The work is based on the solution of the momentum-space Alt, Grassberger and Sandhas (AGS) equations [17] together with the screening and renormalization approach [18,19,20] for the Coulomb interaction leading to the results of observables that are independent of the screening radius, provided it is sufficiently large.In the prese...

Poly(ester amide)s have emerged in the last years as an important family of biodegradable synthetic polymers. These polymers present both ester and amide linkages in their structure and they gather in the same entity the good degradability of polyesters with the good thermomechanical properties of polyamides. Particularly, poly(ester amide)s containing α-amino acids have risen as important materials in the biomedical field. The presence of the α-amino acid contributes to better cell-polymer interactions, allows the introduction of pendant reactive groups, and enhances the overall biodegradability of the polymers. This review summarizes the recent advances in the development of α-amino acid based poly(ester amide)s, the main synthetic pathways used in their preparation along with their main biomedical applications.