Reflexive Polymers & Hydrogels

The design of environment-sensitive systems with biomedical and pharmaceutical applications has improved significantly due to recent advances in smart polymer and hydrogel technology. Reflexive Polymers and Hydrogels: Understanding and Designing Fast-Responsive Polymeric Systems examines several natural systems that respond rapidly to environmental stimuli, providing the reader with an understanding of mechanisms that govern these responses. It also considers limitations of reflexive systems, by investigating model systems where selected interactions of specific components are evaluated to determine theoretical limits of response rates and cycle time. The text characterizes the status of artificially prepared materials that could have both thermodynamic and kinetic response events, and explores potential future applications of such systems. It includes chapters on how to design synthetic reflexive systems based on an understanding of the naturally occurring systems, and discusses potential applications of reflexive systems in biomedical and pharmaceutical areas. Designed for those working in controlled drug delivery, tissue engineering and biomedical engineering, this groundbreaking text is one of the first to deal with kinetic and thermodynamic aspects of smart polymers and hydrogels, with a specific focus on extremely fast-responsive systems. Features ˇ Offers highly relevant information previously unavailable in a single text ˇ Examines the feasibility of systems designed for biological use from both kinetic and thermodynamic points of view ˇ Compares fast-responsive polymeric systems to existing, natural systems ˇ Explores methods for preparing flash systems for specific applications