Water-Soluble Polymers

Dear Colleagues,

Co)Polymers bearing sufficient hydrophilic functionality allowing for molecular dissolution in aqueous media may be broadly defined as water-soluble polymers. The hydrophilic functional groups may be neutral, anionic, cationic, zwitterionic, or a combination of such groups, and the materials may be homopolymers, block copolymers, statistical copolymers etc with  well-defined, or non-well-defined molecular characteristics such as Mn and composition. Such materials may exhibit an impressive range of aqueous solution behaviours including, for example, upper and lower critical solution temperatures, the ability to serve as viscosifying agents above a critical concentration, biocompatibility, the ability to undergo self-directed assembly, and stimuli responsive characteristics that may be manifested in a variety of manners.

Prof. Dr. Andrew B. Lowe
Guest Editor