Research has shown that many Bentonite in Nigeria are unsuitable for oil well drilling in their natural states. Their modification and blends with some additives could increase the yield and boost their suitability. Many indigenous polymers have become very popular due to environmental friendliness and their ability to modify rheology of clay suspension. However, the common natural polymers are...

Novel cyclic olefin polymers (COPs) derived from bulky cyclic olefins, tricyclodipentadiene (TCPD) and tricyclo[6.4.0.19,12]-tridec-10-ene (TTE), with high glass transition temperature (Tg), excellent thermal stability, and high transparency, have been synthesized by ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) and subsequent hydrogenation. ROMP of TCPD and TTE was carried out successfully wit...

Aging in super glassy polymers such as poly(trimethylsilylpropyne) (PTMSP), poly(4-methyl-2-pentyne) (PMP), and polymers with intrinsic microporosity (PIM-1) reduces gas permeabilities and limits their application as gas-separation membranes. While super glassy polymers are initially very porous, and ultra-permeable, they quickly pack into a denser phase becoming less porous and permeable. This...

Amongst functional macromolecules, the combination of polymers and dyes is a research field of great potential with regard to high-performance materials. Accordingly, colored polymers have become increasingly important as materials for miscellaneous technical applications in recent years while also being a major part of everyday life. For instance, dye-containing polymers are nowadays widely ap...

Polymers are ubiquitous components of products manufactured for medical and pharmaceutical applications. Widely used commodity polymers were the first polymers to be utilised in biomedical applications. These polymers were not developed with biocompatibility established at the onset and many speciality polymers have been developed in recent years to begin to meet the multifaceted demands for me...

A novel series of peptide based hybrid polymers designed to undergo enzymatic degradation is presented, via macrosubstitution of a polyphosphazene backbone with the tetrapeptide Gly-Phe-Leu-Gly. Further co-substitution of the hybrid polymers with hydrophilic polyalkylene oxide Jeffamine M-1000 leads to water soluble and biodegradable hybrid polymers. Detailed degradation studies, via 31P NMR sp...

Polymers as an adjuvant are capable of enhancing the vaccine potential against various infectious diseases and also are being used to study the actual autoimmune responses using self-antigen(s) without involving any major immune deviation. Several natural polysaccharides and their derivatives originating from microbes and plants have been tested for their adjuvant potential. Similarly, numerous...

The nematophagous fungus Arthrobotrys oligospora captures nematodes using adhesive polymers present on special hyphae (traps) which form a three-dimensional network. To understand further the adhesion mechanisms, A. oligospora surface polymers were visualized by transmission electron microscopy and characterized by chemical methods. Both traps and hyphae were surrounded by a fibrillar layer of ...

We review recent theoretical studies on the statistical and dynamical properties of polymers with nontrivial structures in chemical connectivity and those of polymers with a nontrivial topology, such as knotted ring polymers in solution. We call polymers with nontrivial structures in chemical connectivity expressed by graphs “topological polymers”. Graphs with no loop have only trivial topology...