Low‐temperature processing of polymer nanoparticles for bioactive composites

Abstract

Utilizing an ingenious control over the enhanced segmental mobility of polymer chains, we proposed a novel low‐temperature processing strategy for polymeric materials, where the materials were processed substantially below their normal glass transition temperature. This state of art was achieved by the combination of the confinement effects and the stress‐induced effects on polymer nanoparticles. This method proved to be universal for various polymer systems, that is, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, polycarbonate, and polyphenylene oxide. Compared with the traditional high‐temperature processing, the low‐temperature processing efficiently avoids thermal degradation, and the processed polymer maintains moderate mechanical properties. In addition, this approach provides a straightforward method for the preparation of heat‐labile bioactive polymer composites without biological surface modification. The prepared lysozyme/polystyrene composite exhibits excellent bactericidal activity and striking sustained release characteristics. This facile, universal and energy‐saving low‐temperature processing strategy is expected to open avenues toward expanding manufacturing methodology and the applications of polymeric materials, especially for bioactive composites, where conventional high‐temperature processing is not applicable. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2016, 54, 2514–2520

Nanomaterials for Biomedical Applications: Production, Characterisations, Recent Trends and Difficulties

“…Therefore, it is suggested that the scaling up of nanocomposites in the biomedical industry will be doubled soon to include all market requirements. For instance, it has been proved that by deposition/mixing metallic ions on/within a polymer matrix, nanocomposites based on polymers are achievable through photolithography and electrospinning techniques [ 79 , 80 , 81 , 82 , 83 , 84 ].…”

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“…A glucose biosensor was fabricated using photolithography, and for this purpose, a silicon wafer was spin-coated with AZ-1518 as a photoresist. This was further coated with a hexagonal close-packed circle array to develop a hexagonal close-packed column array of AZ-This biosensor was found to be very efficient in detecting non-enzymatic glucose in a linear range [ 80 ]. The production of shape-defined proteins is also a successful example of photolithography as a designing method for proteins, as it is applicable for different biomedical applications such as medication transfer and biochemical detectors [ 81 ].…”

Baroplastics with Ultrahigh Strength and Modulus via Hydrogen-Bonding Interactions with Agar

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