Temperature-responsive Polymer

Temperature-responsive Polymer

Temperature-responsive polymers or thermoresponsive polymers are polymers that exhibit a drastic and discontinuous change of their physical properties with temperature. The term is commonly used when the property concerned is solubility in a given solvent, but it may also be used when other properties are affected. Thermoresponsive polymers belong to the class of stimuli-responsive materials, in contrast to temperature-sensitive (for short, thermosensitive) materials, which change their properties continuously with environmental conditions. In a stricter sense, thermoresponsive polymers display a miscibility gap in their temperature-composition diagram. Depending on whether the miscibility gap is found at low or high temperatures, an upper or lower critical solution temperature exists, respectively (abbreviated UCST or LCST).

Research mainly focuses on polymers that show thermoresponsivity in aqueous solution. Promising areas of application are tissue engineering, liquid chromatography, drug delivery and bioseparation. Only a few commercial applications exist, for example, cell culture plates coated with an LCST-polymer.