Biofuels and Biopolymers

Biopolymers in Biomedical Applications

Polymers have become a necessary commodity of everyday life and are used for manufacturing of hundreds of things of our daily use from house hold items to transportation and communication. Polymers are also used in medicine; however, all the polymers cannot be used for this purpose. For medical applications, a polymer should have the following properties: (a) bio-safe and non-toxic which means that it should be non-carcinogenic, non-teratogenicity, non-mutagenic, non-cytotoxic, non-pyrogenic, nonhemolytic, non-allergenic and chronically non-inflammative etc. (b) must be effective in terms of functionality, durability, and performance (c) must be interfacial, mechanically and biologically biocompatible and (d) sterilizable through different techniques like autoclave, dry heating, electron beam irradiation etc. It should also be chemically inert and very stable i.e. it should not decay or disintegrate to give obnoxious toxic products with the passage of time especially when it is intended to be implanted within body.