Terminology for biorelated polymers and applications (IUPAC Recommendations 2012)
Pure and Applied Chemistry, 84 (2):
377-410 (2012)DOI: 10.1351/PAC-REC-10-12-04
Abstract
Like most of the materials used by humans, polymeric materials are proposed inthe literature and occasionally exploited clinically, as such, as devices or as part of devices,by surgeons, dentists, and pharmacists to treat traumata and diseases. Applications have incommon the fact that polymers function in contact with animal and human cells, tissues,and/or organs. More recently, people have realized that polymers that are used as plastics inpackaging, as colloidal suspension in paints, and under many other forms in the environment,are also in contact with living systems and raise problems related to sustainability, deliveryof chemicals or pollutants, and elimination of wastes. These problems are basically compa-rable to those found in therapy. Last but not least, biotechnology and renewable resources areregarded as attractive sources of polymers. In all cases, water, ions, biopolymers, cells, andtissues are involved. Polymer scientists, therapists, biologists, and ecologists should thus usethe same terminology to reflect similar properties, phenomena, and mechanisms. Of particu-lar interest is the domain of the so-called “degradable or biodegradable polymers” that areaimed at providing materials with specific time-limited applications in medicine and in theenvironment where the respect of living systems, the elimination, and/or the bio-recycling aremandatory, at least ideally.