Thermo-Moisture Responsive Polyurethane Shape Memory Polymer for Biomedical Devices

ABSTRACT

Shape memory polymers (SMPs) have a number of advantages as compared with their metal counterpart, i.e., shape memory alloys, in particular for biomedical applications. The recent finding of the influence of moisture on the glass transition temperature of a polyurethane SMP, which is traditionally well-known for its thermo-responsive feature, enables us to achieve not only the so called moisture-driven for shape recovery, but also the recovery following a predetermined sequence, i.e., programmed recovery. Utilizing these new features, we demonstrate a few novel applications of this SMP for biomedical devices, in particular, for minimally invasive surgery and cell surgery in future.