Polymer blends and composites from renewable resources

Microparticle delivery system is accepted as are reliable. Mean to delivery the drug to the target site with specificity,. The drug should be delivered to specific target site at a rate and concentration that provides optimum therapeutic efficacy and reducing the side effect to minimum. Microspheres are empty spherical particles, the particle size is less than 200 mm. Microspheres are free flowing powder consisting of natural and synthetic polymers. They have the potential controlled release drug. Polymers are the most important things of pharmaceutical drug delivery. There are many kind of polymers which varying the properties available those days for use in different pharmaceutical applications. Polymers use in the preparation of microspheres is the synthetic and natural polymers. Synthetic polymers are acrolein, poly anhydrides, methyl meth acrylate, lactides, and glycosides. Natural polymers are albumin, gelatin, collagen, agarose, chitosan, carragenene. Microspheres are the free flowing powders consist of protein and synthetic polymers having a particle size ranging from 1 ? 1000 micrometer. Microspheres are prepared by several techniques but the choice of method depends upon the drug. The polymers used and duration of action required. The evaluation parameters of microspheres are micromeritic properties particle size and shape, swelling index, tapped density, drug loading efficiency. In coming days by combining numerous other sceniorio, we will find the microspheres in novel drug delivery. Specifically in disease cell sorting diagnostics, gene and genetic materials, safe targeted and effective in vivo delivery and supplements a tiny interpretation of diseased organ and tissue in the body. Keywords: Microencapsulation, novel drug delivery, synthetic and natural polymers, duration of action.

Poly (vinyl alcohol) and hyaluronic acid hydrogels as potential biomaterial systems - A comprehensive review

Advances in Drug Delivery

Graphene-Based Materials for Inhibition of Wound Infection and Accelerating Wound Healing

6 - Nanoengineered polymeric biomaterials for drug delivery system

Most commercialized wound dressings are polymer-based. Synthetic and natural polymers have been utilized widely for the development of wound dressings. However, the use of natural polymers is limited by their poor mechanical properties, resulting in their combination with synthetic polymers and other materials to enhance their mechanical properties. Natural polymers are mostly affordable, biocompatible, and biodegradable with promising antimicrobial activity. They have been further tailored into unique hybrid wound dressings when combined with synthetic polymers and selected biomaterials. Some important features required in an ideal wound dressing include the capability to prevent bacteria invasion, reduce odor, absorb exudates, be comfortable, facilitate easy application and removal as well as frequent changing, prevent further skin tear and irritation when applied or removed, and provide a moist environment and soothing effect, be permeable to gases, etc. The efficacy of polymers in the design of wound dressings cannot be overemphasized. This review article reports the efficacy of wound dressings prepared from a combination of synthetic and natural polymers.

Electrospinning is one of the techniques to produce structured polymeric fibers in the micro or nano scale and to generate novel materials for biomedical proposes. Electrospinning versatility provides fibers that could support different surgical and rehabilitation treatments. However, its diversity in equipment assembly, polymeric materials, and functional molecules to be incorporated in fibers result in profusion of recent biomaterials that are not fully explored, even though the recognized relevance of the technique. The present article describes the main electrospun polymeric materials used in oral applications, and the main aspects and parameters of the technique. Natural and synthetic polymers, blends, and composites were identified from the available literature and recent developments. Main applications of electrospun fibers were focused on drug delivery systems, tissue regeneration, and material reinforcement or modification, although studies require further investigation in order to enable direct use in human. Current and potential usages as biomaterials for oral applications must motivate the development in the use of electrospinning as an efficient method to produce highly innovative biomaterials, over the next few years. Impact statement Nanotechnology is a challenge for many researchers that look for obtaining different materials behaviors by modifying characteristics at a very low scale. Thus, the production of nanostructured materials represents a very important field in bioengineering, in which the electrospinning technique appears as a suitable alternative. This review discusses and provides further explanation on this versatile technique to produce novel polymeric biomaterials for oral applications. The use of electrospun fibers is incipient in oral areas, mainly because of the unfamiliarity with the technique. Provided disclosure, possibilities and state of the art are aimed at supporting interested researchers to better choose proper materials, understand, and design new experiments. This work seeks to encourage many other researchers-Dentists, Biologists, Engineers, Pharmacists-to develop innovative materials from different polymers. We highlight synthetic and natural polymers as trends in treatments to motivate an advance in the worldwide discussion and exploration of this interdisciplinary field.

Ancient fibrous biomaterials from silkworm protein fibroin and spider silk blends: Biomechanical patterns

Plant proteins show good potential for medical applications but offer considerable challenges in fabricating biomaterials. Despite substantial efforts, especially in the last decade, to develop polymeric biomaterials, there are no polymers that are ideally suited for tissue engineering, drug delivery and other medical applications. Therefore, the quest to find new sources for biomaterials continues. Natural proteins such as collagen and silk, carbohydrates such as chitosan and cellulose and synthetic biopolymers such as poly (lactic acid) have been extensively studied for potential medical applications. Biotechnology and nanotechnology have also been widely adopted to develop regenerated and recombinant polymers for medical applications. The advent of nanotechnology and its many advantages for medical applications have led to the development of nanofibers and nanoparticles from both the natural and synthetic polymers for tissue engineering, controlled release and other medical applications. However, both natural and synthetic polymers currently available have many limitations that restrict their use for medical applications. Biomaterials developed from natural polymers do not have the desired mechanical properties for medical applications. For instance, scaffolds developed from collagen have poor hydrolytic stability and efforts to crosslink and improve the properties have not been successful to provide cytocompatible biomaterials. Although silk has excellent mechanical properties and biocompatibility, silk has slow degradation rates and it is difficult to dissolve and process silk into various types of biomaterials. Biomaterials developed from most synthetic polymers have the biocompatibility and mechanical properties but their degradation into toxic substances in the body is a cause for concern. Similarly, metal and ceramic based biomaterials do not have the desired degradability and are difficult to process into different forms of biomaterials.

Chapter 10 - Biodegradable polymers as packaging materials

Polymer contamination with the advent of fast industrialization has become one of the serious threat to the natural environment. Due to lack of proper knowledge, poor waste management practice and unavailability of potential microbial strains, preference toward the biodegradable manmade and natural polymers. The prevalent occurrence of synthetic polymers is related to industrialization and domestic practices which affect the marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Scientific approaches exploited for polymer degradation include physical, chemical and biological treatments. Among them, biodegradation serves as eco-friendly approach to remediate polluted environment using living organisms. In this chapter biodegradation of natural (cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin), synthetic (polyurethane, polyethylene succinate, polycaprolactone, polyvinyl alcohol and polyethylene) polymers and associated factors that influence the polymer biodegradation process have been discussed.

Chemical enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes are usually used as additives for hydrocarbon production due to its simplicity and relatively reasonable additional production costs. Polymer flooding uses polymer solutions to increase oil recovery by decreasing the water/oil mobility ratio by increasing the viscosity of the displacing water. The commonly used synthetic water-soluble polymer in EOR application is partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM). However, synthetic polymers in general are not attractive because of high cost, environmental concerns, limitation in high temperature, and high-salinity environment. Guar gum is an environmentally friendly natural water-soluble polymer available in large quantities in many countries and widely used in various applications in the oil and gas industry especially in drilling fluids and hydraulic fracturing operations; however, very limited studies investigated on guar as a polymer for EOR and no any study investigated on its uses in high-temperature and high -salinity reservoirs. The objective of this study is to confirm the use of guar gum as a natural polymer for EOR applications in sandstone reservoirs and investigate its applicability for high-temperature and high-salinity reservoirs. The study experimentally investigated rheological characteristics of a natural polymer obtained from guar gum with consideration of high temperature (up to 210 °F) and high salinity (up to 20% NaCl) and tested the guar solution as EOR polymer. The results of this study show that the guar solution can be used as an environmentally friendly polymer to enhance oil recovery. Based on the results, it can be concluded that guar gum shows shear-thinning behavior and strongly susceptible to microbial degradation but also shows a very good properties stability in high temperature and salinity, where in low shear rate case, about 100 cp viscosity can be achieved at 210 °F for polymer prepared in deionized water. Guar polymer shows good viscosity in the presence of 20% NaCl where the viscosity is acceptable for temperature less than 190 °F. Also, the flooding experiment shows that the recovery factor can be increased by 16%.

Bioartificial polymeric materials represent a new class of polymeric materials based on blends of synthetic and natural polymers, designed with the purpose of producing new materials with enhanced properties with respect to the single components. The mechanical properties of bioartificial materials prepared using poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) and poly(methacrylic acid) (PMAA) as synthetic components, and collagen (SC), gelatin, starch, hyaluronic acid (HA) and dextran as biological components, were investigated by dynamic mechanical thermal analysis. The materials were prepared in the form of films or hydrogels and treated by glutaraldehyde (GTA) vapour or thermal dehydration in order to reduce their solubility in water. The results indicate that SC/PVA, gelatin/PVA and starch/PVA films behave as biphasic systems, showing good mechanical properties over a wide range of temperature. It was observed that the GTA procedure affects only the biological component of the SC/PVA and gelatin/PVA blends, whilst the thermal treatment influences mainly the synthetic polymer. In the case of HA/PVA hydrogels, a modulus variation was found with the HA content related to the organization degree and perfection of the PVA network structure. It seems evident that, in the experimental conditions used, dextran/PAA mixtures behave as miscible blends showing a glass transition intermediate between those of the pure components. With both untreated and GTA-treated gelatin/PMAA blends, it was not possible to evaluate the miscibility of the systems; it could only be affirmed that these materials show good mechanical properties over a wide range of temperature. © 1997 SCI.

1 - Introduction to polymeric nanomaterials

The limited degradation of synthetic polymers used in food packaging when discarded in the environment is a major concern for society. Therefore, industry and academia have sought to develop biodegradable and eco-friendly materials for single-use in packaging. An interesting alternative for the food industry is biodegradable polymeric films, which is why different biopolymers have been used in the production of sustainable packaging. It is worth mentioning that the use of biodegradable polymers is one of the most successful innovations in the industry to address issues related to the environment. Among the available raw materials, starch extracted from different renewable sources is very promising for this purpose, due to its abundance, low-cost compared to other polymers and ability to produce non-toxic films. However, when used alone, pure starch has many limitations, which can be overcome by developing a mixture with other polymers (polymer blends), preferably from renewable and biodegradable sources, such as poly(lactic acid) (PLA). In this context, the absence of literature reviews evidencing the results of the application of films in foods led us to write this article, given the importance of polymer blends produced with different types of starch (cassava, corn, pea, potato, rice and wheat) and the PLA matrix. According to the results, it is clear that polymer blends based on PLA/Starch for food packaging are very promising, already being part of the industries solutions, aiming to minimize the large volume of plastic waste of petrochemical origin discarded in nature. Obviously, as with any technology, more research is needed to further improve the performance of the films, and while much research has made great strides, there are still limitations that prevent the commercialization of these materials.