Surface modification of cellulose nanofibers for thermoplastic elastomer based composites: new age materials for biomedical applications

 Thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) have attracted significant interest in the last few decades, owing to their enormous specialized properties and wide range of applications. TPE is a multiphase polymer system with combined features of elastomers and thermoplastics. Nanoscale phase separation effectively gives rise to large number of physical crosslinks per unit volume resulting in mechanical properties comparable as vulcanized rubber. Apart from that, they exhibit easy processability, little or no compounding, no scraps, tunable morphology, recyclability and polymers of narrow molecular weight distribution. 

Over the years, several new researches in this field opened versatile application field. Some of this include polyelectrolyte membrane for fuel cell, automotive applications, sensors, shape memory polymers and biomedical application. My current project is mainly focused on extraction of cellulose nanofibers from bio-waste, its surface modification by long chain polymers or short chain moieties  and selective dispersion in styrenic block copolymer based TPEs.  Apart from this, suitability of these new classes of TPEs in special medical application fields like heart valves, stents etc. will be explored.