Free radical homopolymerization, in heterogeneous medium, of linear and star-shaped polymerizable amphiphilic poly(ethers) : A new way to design hydrogels well suited for biomedical applications

摘要

The synthesis and the properties of selected macromolecular structures based on poly(ethylene oxide), (PEO) are discussed in the present paper. The first part deals with the development of efficient multifunctional anionic initiators aimed to design well-defined functionalizable star-shaped PEO's. Different approaches providing access to branched species of controlled hydrophilic /hydrophobic balance will be considered. The second part is devoted to the homopolymerization of amphiphilic bifunctional PEO macromonomers as an efficient way to yield PEO hydrogels directly in water. The extension of that approach to degradable PEO hydrogels or to the copolymerization of macromonomers with star-shaped PEO's partially functionalized with polymerizable entities will be briefly mentioned. These hydrogels served as semi-permeable membrane for an artificial pancreas and as a template for the growth of nervous cells.