Synthesis of antioxidant polymers by free radical procedure

The surface of a polymers is important to the material performance because among all parts of a polymeric materials, the outmost surface is most prone to both physical and chemical interactions with its environment. To achieve materials with desired surface properties for specific applications, several procedures were applied to modify the surface. Basically the traditional procedures consist to functionalize the materials by drastic chemical conditions (high temperature, extreme pH conditions, etc). Furthermore , these processes were often performed in organic solvent, and this reducing the potential use of these modified materials (for example, reduced biocompatibility due to presence of organic solvents). One of the most promising method to functionalize the polymeric materials under mild and biocompatible conditions is the grafting procedure. The advantages in the use grafting reaction consist in the functionalize the materials without affecting its bulk properties, elimination of the need to redesign the bulk material to achieve a target surface performance and the reduction of the cost. In the discussion, some representative examples of polymeric functionalization by grafting reaction were selected and divided in two classes: synthetic and natural polymers.