Adhesives provide a needle-free method of wound closure and do not require local anaesthetics. Polymeric adhesives have been used for about 3 decades for joining several tissues of the organism. Also, they can accomplish other tasks, such as haemostasis and the ability to seal air leakages and have the potential to serve as delivery systems.

Polymeric hybrid materials and their specific functionalization have attracted great interest, due to their chemical, thermal and mechanical properties performance, in relation to their equivalent non hybrids. Siloxane based materials offer great interest due to their excellent chemical, physical and electric properties. The primary structure of the siloxane could be modified either by side chain functionalization or by changing the main chain, forming hybrid materials. This kind of materials could be used in several and diverse areas, namely in protective and high performance coatings. The enhancement of their properties can be achieved by incorporating materials such as polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (POSS) into their polymeric chain. In this paper are presented two new hybrid polymers, the poly(methyl methacrylate-co-isobutyl acrylate-co-glycidyl methacrylate-co-vinyltriethoxysilane) (POSS_0) and the poly(methyl methacrylate-co-isobutyl acrylate-co-glycidyl methacrylate-co-vinyltriethoxysilane-co-(isobutyl)propyl methacrylate(polisilsesquioxane)(POSS_15). These copolymers were prepared by a radical polymerization, and were designed to have the same structure acrylic, epoxy, silane and POSS fractions, which lead to offer multiple properties with high interest to coating systems due to their epoxy and siloxane groups. The presence of the POSS cage in the hybrid polymeric structure increases the hydrophobic character and the thermal stability. When applied in commercial bi-component anti-corrosive paint formulations, the hybrid copolymers presented good performance, good compatibility properties for the different formulation components without forming agglomerates or phase separation. The coating formulation shows quick drying. These materials presented excellent mechanical properties, good adhesion, flexibility and impact resistance.

Surgical adhesives can be applied to wound closure and to covering and protecting surface wounds. Depending on their degradability, they can then slough off or can be reabsorbed by the organism when the wound initiates the healing process. In this work, we intended to develop a new urethane-based bioadhesive that could accomplish these purposes. Urethanes are considered to be promising candidates as adhesives because of the possibility of their synthesis as prepolymers and therefore their reaction with amino groups present in the biological molecules. Some urethanes were obtained by the reaction of poly(ethylene glycol) with isophorone diisocyanate. The characterization of the various materials was accomplished with different techniques: attenuated total reflection/Fourier transform infrared, swelling-capacity determination, the evaluation of the moisture-curing kinetics, a reaction with aminated substrates (as a simulation of the living tissues), and the determination of the surface energy by contact-angle measurements. The study of the thermal properties of the urethanes was performed by dynamical mechanical thermal analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, and thermogravimetric analysis. The hemocompatibility of the urethane was also evaluated by thrombosis and hemolysis tests. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 2007

Surgical adhesives have been used for several applications, including haemostasis, sealing air leakages and tissue adhesion. The aim of this work was to develop a biodegradable urethane-based bioadhesive containing free isocyanate groups. This material presents the advantage of being biodegradable, biocompatible and having the capacity of reacting with amino groups present in the biological molecules.

Six different membranes previously prepared by the authors by graft copolymerization of acrylic acid (AA) and 2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate (HEMA) onto chitosan were characterized. The graft copolymerization of the vinyl monomers onto chitosan was confirmed by FTIR and DMTA. The chitosan used was also characterized by DMTA, which allowed addressing some questions related to the typical thermal transitions of this biopolymer. The swelling capacity of the membranes was also determined. The chitosan-graft-AA-graft-HEMA with an equimolar ratio of HEMA and AA kept good swelling capacity without compromising its physical stability, which suggests it to be the best matrix for drug delivery systems.

The synthesis and characterisation of a novel family of unsaturated polyesters (UPs) and their crosslinked resins (UPRs) based on 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) are reported. Their original features stem from the use of FDCA as the aromatic monomer, and also from the fact that UPs are entirely based on renewable resources, oppositely to most reported materials which are typically based on petrochemicals or instead they are derived from both petrochemicals and a percentage of renewables. Additionally, instead of styrene, 2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate (HEMA) was used as the reactive solvent to obtain the UPRs. These novel resins showed adequate thermal and mechanical behavioural tendencies similar to petrochemical ones, namely high glass transition temperature (up to 104 degrees C) and good thermal stability (up to 230 degrees C). These characteristics enhance their prospects of being a successful renewable-based material.

Chitosan based membranes to be applied on wound healing as topical drug delivery systems were developed by graft copolymerization of acrylic acid (AA) and 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) onto chitosan using cerium ammonium nitrate as chemical initiator. Evidence for graft copolymerization of the vinyl monomers onto chitosan was obtained by FTIR and DMTA. Swelling degree, cytotoxicity, thrombogenicity and haemolytic activity of these membranes were evaluated. Chitosan-graft-AA-graft-HEMA showed to be the best matrix for drug delivery systems than chitosan-graft-AA because it retains good swelling properties, but the content in HEMA has improved cytocompatibility, hemocompatibility and thrombogenic character.

In this study we propose a suitable method for the solar-activated controlled release of volatile compounds from polymeric microcapsules bonded with photocatalytic nanoparticles. These reservoirs can find applications, for example, in the controlled release of insecticides, repellents, or fragrances, amongst other substances. The surfaces of the microcapsules have been functionalized with TiO2 nanoparticles.Upon ultraviolet irradiation, redox mechanisms are initiated on the semiconductor surface resulting in the dissociation of the polymer chains of the capsule wall and, finally, volatilization of the encapsulated compounds. The quantification of the output release has been performed by gas chromatography analysis coupled with mass spectroscopy.