Polymer Libraries: Preparation and Applications
Polymer libraries offer straightforward opportunities for the investigation of structure–property relationships and for a more thorough understanding of certain research problems. Furthermore, if combined with high-throughput methods for their preparation
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Polymer Libraries: Preparation and Applications Dean C. Webster and Michael A. R. Meier
Abstract Polymer libraries offer straightforward opportunities for the investigation of structure–property relationships and for a more thorough understanding of certain research problems. Furthermore, if combined with high-throughput methods for their preparation as well as screening, they offer the additional advantage of time savings and/or the reduction of experimental efforts. Thus, the herein discussed methods of polymer library preparation and selected literature examples of polymer libraries describe efficient and state-of-the-art methods to tackle difficult research challenges in polymer and materials science. Keywords Combinatorial materials research · High-throughput screening · Library preparation · Polymer library · Property screening
Contents 1 Introduction 2 Polymer Library Preparation 3 Selected Examples References D.C. Webster (B) Coatings and Polymeric Materials, North Dakota State University, 1735 NDSU Research Park Drive, Fargo, ND 58102, USA email:[email protected] M.A.R. Meier University of Potsdam, Institute of Chemistry, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24-25, 14476 Golm, Germany email:[email protected]
c Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009
D.C. Webster and M.A.R. Meier
1 Introduction Polymers are highly tailorable materials and polymers having unique combinations of properties or can perform a specific function (e.g. drug delivery) are desirable. In addition to variations in composition and molecular weight, different polymer architectures, such as block, graft, star, dendrimer, etc., are also possible. Identifying a specific polymer that has the desired properties can be a challenging task due to the large number of variations possible. Therefore, polymer libraries, in combination with high-throughput screening techniques, are highly useful tools for the evaluation of (quantitative) structure– property relationships and/or the identification of “hits” of certain desired properties of the evaluated materials. These tools help researchers to understand their research problems more thoroughly by, e.g., finding optimal process conditions or product performance within a reduced amount of time and/or experimental effort. After the introduction of combinatorial and high-throughput approaches in pharmaceutical and catalysis research programs, these methods also became available to the polymer/materials scientist at the beginning of this new century [1–3]. Therefore, new and specially adopted preparation and high-throughput screening techniques had to be developed, taking the requirements of the fields into account [4]. Examples include parallel synthetic equipment that can handle highly viscous polymer melts and solutions as well as screening techniques for polymer molecular weights and molecular weight distributions. Only this development made it possible to prepare and screen polymer libraries within a reasonable amount of time, opening the possibility to address scientific questions that would
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