Morphology formation and application of interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) materials

Abstract

Interpenetrating polymer network (PN) is a mixture of network polymers. The characteristics of lPN material is the control of morphology during the IPN synthesis. By controlling the relative kinetics of chemical reaction (as well as gellation) and phase separation, the morphology of IPN can be controlled to obtain materials with nano-scale domain and also the co-continuous phase. Other important advantage is the fact that the morphology is permanent due to the presence of the physical interlocking between the networks. The combination of hydrophilic polyurethane and hydrophobic polystyrene in IPN form provides enhanced blood compatibility due to the co-existence of the hydrophilic and hydrophobic domains in nano-scale on the surface. The reaction temperature, reaction pressure and the degree of crosslinking were varied during the IPN synthesis and the morphology and blood compatibility of the resulting IPN materials were studied.