Polymers are one of the most fascinating materials of the present era finding their applications in almost every aspects of life. Polymers are either directly available in nature or are chemically synthesized and used depending upon the targeted applications.Advances in polymer science and the introduction of new polymers have resulted in the significant development of polymers with unique properties. Different kinds of polymers have been and will be one of the key in several applications in many of the advanced pharmaceutical research being carried out over the globe. This 4-partset of books contains precisely referenced chapters, emphasizing different kinds of polymers with basic fundamentals and practicality for application in diverse pharmaceutical technologies. The volumes aim at explaining basics of polymers based materials from different resources and their chemistry along with practical applications which present a future direction in the pharmaceutical industry. Each volume offer deep insight into the subject being treated. Volume 1: Structure and Chemistry Volume 2: Processing and Applications Volume 3: Biodegradable Polymers Volume 4: Bioactive and Compatible Synthetic/Hybrid Polymers

Proceedings of the Symposium, Macro 2000, held at Kanpur on 1-2 December 2000.

Antioxidant Polymers is an exhaustive overview of the recent developments in the field of polymeric materials showing antioxidant properties. This research area has grown rapidly in the last decade because antioxidant polymers have wide industry applications ranging from materials science to biomedical, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.

During the last two decades, the production of polymers and plastics has been increasing rapidly. In spite of developing new polymers and polymeric materials, only 40-60 are used commercially on a large scale. It has been estimated that half of the annual production of polymers is employed outdoors. Increasing the stability of polymers and plastics towards heat, light, atmospheric oxygen and other environmental agents and weathering conditions has always been a very important problem. The photochemical instability of most of polymers limits them to outdoor application, where they are photo degraded fast over periods ranging from months to a few years. To the despair of technologists and consumers alike, photodegrada tion and environmental ageing of polymers occur much faster than can be expected from knowledge collected in laboratories. In many cases, improved methods of preparation and purification of both monomers and polymers yield products of better quality and higher resistance to heat and light. However, without stabilization of polymers by applica tion of antioxidants (to decrease thermal oxidative degradation) and photostabilizers (to decrease photo-oxidative degradation) it would be impossible to employ polymers and plastics in everyday use.

Although several monographs and reviews have appeared on individual polymers of this type, and their applications and other technical aspects have also been discussed, this is apparently the first book to deal with the physical chemistry of water-soluble synthetic polymers as a group. This collective survey enables their properties and behaviour to be compared, and to be correlated with their molecular structures for predictive purposes. However, this has made it necessary to critically re-appraise much of the earlier fundamental work, so that current discussion of more recent work can be put on ta proper basis. Thus, of the 1800 or so references cited, the middle two-thirds related to the twenty-year period centred on about 1968. Nevertheless, sufficient key recent references have also been included so that the existing ‘state of the art is delineated.