Polymer Gels: Fundamentals and Biomedical Applications

✍ Scribed by Kanji Kajiwara, Shinzo Kohjiya, Mitsuhiro Shibayama, Hiroshi Urakawa (auth.), Danilo DeRossi, Kanji Kajiwara, Yoshihito Osada, Aizo Yamauchi (eds.)

• Publisher: Springer US
• Year: 1991
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 335
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This volume contains a series of papers originally presented at the Symposium on Polymer Gels organized and sponsored by the Research Group on Polymer Gels,The Society of Polymer Science of Japan and co-sponsored by the Science and Technology Agency (ST A) and MIT!, Japan. The Symposium took place at Tsukuba Science City on 18th and 19th September, 1989. Recognized experts in their fields were invited to speak and there was a strong attendance from government, academic and industrial research centers. The purpose of the Symposium was to review the state of the art and to present and discuss recent progress in the understanding of the behavioral properties of polymer gels and their application to biomedical, environmental and robotic fields. Most of the papers and related discussions concentrated on the swelling behavior of hydrogels and chemomechanical systems, both artificial and naturally occurring, in which external stimuli of a physical or chemical nature control energy transformation or signal transduction. The recent great interest in chemomechanical systems based on polymer gels has stimulated considerable effort towards the development of new sensors and actuators, controllable membrane separation processes, and delivery systems in which the functions of sensing, processing and actuation are all built into the polymeric network device. Artificial chemomechanical systems, through the use of environmentally sensitive polymer gels, are emerging as interesting materials for mimicking basic processes previously only confined to the biological world, and commercially viable applications are also foreseen in the not-too-distant future.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-viii
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
Characterization of Gel Structure by Means of SAXS and SANS....Pages 3-19
Physical Gelation of Synthetic and Biological Macromolecules....Pages 21-39
Effects of Shear Modulus of Polymer Gels....Pages 41-56
Interactions between Solvent Molecules and Networks in Biogels —Viscoelasticity, Strength—....Pages 57-75
Synthesis and Properties of Inorganic/Organic Hybrid Gels by the Sol-Gel Process....Pages 77-91
Front Matter....Pages 93-93
Excitation Process and Swelling of Nerve Fibers....Pages 95-110
Cytoskeletons are Functionally Differentiated in the Squid Giant Axon....Pages 111-125
Synthetic Vitreous Body of PVA Hydrogel....Pages 127-134
Immobilization of Bioactive Substances with PVA Supports....Pages 135-146
Electric Modulation of Polymer Gel Contraction and Animal cell Proliferation....Pages 147-157
Front Matter....Pages 159-159
Separation of Organic Solvent/Water Mixtures by Acrylamide Gel Membrane Supported by Silica-Alumina Porous Membrane....Pages 161-171
Permeation Mechanism for a Thermo-Sensitive Switching-Functional Composite Membrane of Porous Glass and Hydrogel....Pages 173-181
Gel Dewatering Process for Biological Slurry....Pages 183-192
Front Matter....Pages 193-193
A Polymer Composite Showing Electrocontractile Response....Pages 195-203
Conversion of Chemical into Mechanical Energy by Synsthetic Polymer Gels (Chemomechanical System)....Pages 205-220
Amphoteric Polyvinyl Alcohol Hydrogel and Electrohydrodynamic Control Method for Artificial Muscles....Pages 221-236
Deformation Behaviors of Polymer Gels in Electric Field....Pages 237-246
Thermoresponsive Polymer Hydrogel....Pages 247-256
Contraction Behavior of Poly(acrylonitrile) Gel Fibers....Pages 257-270
Measuring Contact Stress with 19 F-NMR Spectroscopy....Pages 271-285
Front Matter....Pages 287-287
Conventional and Environmentally-Sensitive Hydrogels for Medical and Industrial Uses: A Review Paper....Pages 289-297
Thermo-Responsive Polymeric Hydrogels and Their Application to Pulsatile Drug Release....Pages 299-308
Hydrophobic Weak Polybasic Gels: Factors Controlling Swelling Equilibria....Pages 309-317
Diffusion-reaction through Coated Gel Containing Enzyme Effects of Asymmetry and Sol-Gel Transition....Pages 319-338
Back Matter....Pages 339-345

✦ Subjects

Biochemistry, general; Biotechnology; Inorganic Chemistry; Organic Chemistry; Polymer Sciences; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials