In order to achieve prescribed drug release kinetics over long therapeutic periods, bi-phasic and possibly multi-phasic releases from blends of biodegradable polymers are currently envisioned. The modelling of drug release in the presence of degradation of the polymer matrix and surface erosion is quite complex. Yet, simple reliable mathematical models validated against experimental data are no...

In this era of portability and rapid technological advances, polymers are more than ever under pressure to be cheap and offer tailored property profiles. Often, the key lies in designing blends and alloys carefully structured at the appropriate scale (preferably less than a micrometre) from existing polymers. Block copolymers - two or more different polymer chains linked together - have long be...

Flexible memory cell array based on high mobility donor-acceptor diketopyrrolopyrrole polymer has been demonstrated. The memory cell exhibits low read voltage, high cell-to-cell uniformity and good mechanical flexibility, and has reliable retention and endurance memory performance. The electrical properties of the memory devices are systematically investigated and modeled. Our results suggest t...

This chapter reviews recent studies on blends of conventional cellulose esters (CEs), such as cellulose acetate (CA), cellulose propionate (CP), and cellulose butyrate (CB), with non-crystalline vinyl (co)polymers mainly comprising the N-vinyl pyrrolidone (VP) unit. The mixing behavior of the CE/VP-containing copolymer blends is seriously affected by the chain length (i.e., carbon number) and d...

When two different polymers are mixed, they usually demix because of the slight repulsive interaction that exists between their monomers. This is general and may be related to phase separation in two component mixtures. When the same polymer blend is cross-linked in the one phase region, elastic forces develop and do not let this to occur. There results a microphase separation, with coexistence...

Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) and poly(butylene succinate-co-butylene adipate) (PBSA) are crystalline/crystalline polymer blends with PVDF being the high-T(m) component and PBSA being the low-T(m) component, respectively. PVDF/PBSA blends are miscible as shown by the decrease of crystallization peak temperature and melting point temperature of each component with increasing the other compone...

Knowledge of the glass transition temperatures (Tgs) as function of composition reflects miscibility (or lack of it) and is decisive for virtually all properties of polymer-based materials. In this article, we analyze single blend-average and effective Tgs of miscible polymer blends in full concentration ranges. Shortcomings of the extant equations are discussed to support the need for an alter...

We present the results of combined experimental and theoretical (molecular dynamics simulations and integral equation theory) studies of the structure and effective interactions of suspensions of polymer grafted nanoparticles (PGNPs) in the presence of linear polymers. Due to the absence of systematic experimental and theoretical studies of PGNPs, it is widely believed that the structure and ef...