Research progress in functional polymer materials

Abstract

Functional polymer material is a type of polymer materials with special functions such as catalysis, conductivity, photosensitivity, and biological activity. They have the function of transmitting, converting, or storing substances, energy, and information. Functional polymer materials have the characteristics of light weight, numerous varieties and strong specialty, which make them widely used in machinery, information technology, biomedicine and other fields. The development of functional polymer materials is very rapid. In order to meet the needs of new technologies in various fields, functional polymer materials are gradually developing towards multi-function such as electromagnetic materials and photothermal materials. With the emergence of smart polymers, functional polymer materials are gradually being developed towards intelligence, such as self-healing functional polymer materials and shape memory materials. The research progress of functional polymer materials in recent years was summarized in this article and their applications were briefly described, with emphasis on reactive functional polymer materials, optical functional polymer materials, electrical functional polymer materials, biomedical functional polymer materials, environmentally degradable polymer materials, shape memory polymer materials and smart polymer hydrogel. At present, most functional polymer materials only have traditional functions such as photoelectricity or special functions such as shape memory. It is believed that functional polymer materials with both traditional and special functions will be the development direction of future materials.

Keywords

• functional polymer materials
• biomedicine
• environmental degradation
• shape memory
• smart hydrogel