Smart Polymers and Their Different Applications

Smart polymers are substances which react to minute outside inducements. Also, they are known as intelligent or stimulus-responsive materials. Stimuli-responsive smart polymers are getting crucial in many industrial fields. Temperature, pH, and stress can alter the strength, structure, and size of these polymers. The stimuli comprise factors like; UV light, salt, pH, temperature, electric field or magnetic field, and ionic concentration. These polymers are promising in tissue engineering field, medication transport, gene carriers, cell culture, oil recovery, textile engineering, protein purification, and radioactive waste management. Expanding and enhancing current applications would be possible by developing novel polymers and cross-linking agents that have better both biodegradability and biocompatibility. The most captivating aspect of smart polymers lies in their ability to be customized and their adaptable sensitivity. All of these external stimuli for smart polymers have a slow reaction time as their main flaw. It is possible to modify polymer reaction to a given inducement within a specific range due to the polymer adaptability of sources and their combinatorial fabrication.