A short review of radiation-induced raft-mediated graft copolymerization: A powerful combination for modifying the surface properties of polymers in a controlled manner

Surface grafting of polymeric materials is attracting increasing attention as it enables the preparation of new materials from known and commercially available polymers having desirable bulk properties such as thermal stability, elasticity, permeability, etc., in conjunction with advantageous newly tailored surface properties such as biocompatibility, biomimicry, adhesion, etc. Ionizing radiation, particularly gamma radiation is one of the most powerful tools for preparing graft copolymers as it generates radicals on most substrates. With the advent of living free-radical polymerization techniques, application of gamma radiation has been extended to a new era of grafting; grafting in a controlled manner to achieve surfaces with tailored and well-defined properties. This report presents the current use of gamma radiation in living free-radical polymerization and highlights the use of both techniques together as a combination to present an advance in the ability to prepare surfaces with desired, tunable and well-defined properties. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.