ABSTRACT
Over the last decade, more industrial interest has been generated in the manufacture of versatile polymer components in view of their electrical, biomedical and other uses. Most of the characteristics of functionalized materials depend on the existence of chemical functional groups, which is quite different from backbone chains, e.g., polar or ionic functional groups of hydrocarbon backbones or hydrophobic groups of polar polymer chains. Various properties of polymers are highly tunable and controllable, such as surface area, reactivity, pore size, rigidity, stiffness, thermal degradation and glass transition temperature. This chapter highlights an introduction and future prospects of smart functional polymers prepared from direct and post polymerization, such as conjugated polymers, hyperbranchedamphiphilic polymers, biodegradable polymers, pseudo-proteins, functionalized cellulose in micro and nano levels, 3D printing polymers, polyvinylcarbazole-based composites for membranes, functional plastics and rubbers, functionalized polyurethane, biopolymeric sensors, stimuli-responsive polymers and polysiloxane and polycarbosilane.
