Integrating Antioxidant Functionality into Polymer Materials: Fundamentals, Strategies, and Applications

Abstract

While antioxidants are widely known as natural components of healthy food and drinks or as additives to commercial polymer materials to prevent their degradation, recent years have seen increasing interest in enhancing the antioxidant functionality of newly developed polymer materials and coatings. This paper provides a critical overview and comparative analysis of multiple ways of integrating antioxidants within diverse polymer materials, including bulk films, electrospun fibers, and self-assembled coatings. Polyphenolic antioxidant moieties with varied molecular architecture are in the focus of this Review, because of their abundance, nontoxic nature, and potent antioxidant activity. Polymer materials with integrated polyphenolic functionality offer opportunities and challenges that span from the fundamentals to their applications. In addition to the traditional blending of antioxidants with polymer materials, developments in surface grafting and assembly via noncovalent interaction for controlling localization versus migration of antioxidant molecules are discussed. The versatile chemistry of polyphenolic antioxidants offers numerous possibilities for programmed inclusion of these molecules in polymer materials using not only van der Waals interactions or covalent tethering to polymers, but also via their hydrogen-bonding assembly with neutral molecules. An understanding and rational use of interactions of polyphenol moieties with surrounding molecules can enable precise control of concentration and retention versus delivery rate of antioxidants in polymer materials that are critical in food packaging, biomedical, and environmental applications.

Shape Memory Polymer Foams with Phenolic Acid-Based Antioxidant Properties

“…The ability to control the rate of oxidative degradation in biomaterials can extend potential applications to longer-term implants. The addition of PAs provides a new tool for tuning SMP foam degradation that could be extended to other oxidatively degradable polymers [ 55 ], such as polylactic acid (PLA) [ 56 ], polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) [ 57 , 58 ], polycaprolactone (PCL) [ 59 ], polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) [ 60 , 61 ], poly( N -vinylcaprolactam) (PVCL) [ 62 ], and polyethylene glycol (PEG) [ 63 , 64 ].…”

On the Use of Oxidation Induction Time as a Kinetic Parameter for Condition Monitoring and Lifetime Evaluation under Ionizing Radiation Environments

“…In order to suppress the environmental degradation of the mentioned polymers and to extend their service life, stabilizing additives are used [44,45]. Antioxidants are largely used with many polymers because of their capacities to either annihilate free radicals (radical scavenger-type antioxidants) or decompose hydroperoxides in a way that is not harmful to the polymer.…”

Mechanochemical Applications of Reactive Extrusion from Organic Synthesis to Catalytic and Active Materials

“…Antioxidants are widely known to be natural components of healthy foods and drinks, as well as additives to commercial polymer materials to prevent their degradation. Recent years have seen increasing interest in enhancing the antioxidant functionality of newly developed polymer materials and coatings [31,46].…”

“…Different polyphenol−polymer interaction strengths can influence the release of polyphenols into aqueous and nonpolar media and can alter the antioxidant activity and physical properties of polyphenol-containing materials. Polyphenol-containing polymer materials can therefore be grouped into three main categories: (i) migratory materials; (ii) covalently bound non-migratory materials; and (iii) materials assembled via hydrogen bonding or electrostatic interactions that are capable of tenable antioxidant release in response to environmental conditions [46]. Antioxidants are widely known to be natural components of healthy foods and drinks, as well as additives to commercial polymer materials to prevent their degradation.…”