Conductive Polymers and Composites for Medical Applications

Conductive polymers (CPs) are a class of organic materials with peculiar electrical and optical properties comparable with those of inorganic semiconductors and metals. They include synthetic or structurally modified natural polymers, which can be accurately controlled by modifying chemical and/or physical properties, for functionality in specific applications. Relevant benefits--including flexibility, high workability, light weight, biocompatibility to some extent - make them suitable candidates for the development of smart materials--namely materials with highly controllable behavior in response to external stimuli - for a variety of applications in the biomedical field (i.e., cell guiding scaffolds, smart molecular release systems, bioelectronics and biosensing). Moreover, CPs can be combined with various types of materials at the nanoscale (i.e., graphene, fullerene, nanotubes, nanoparticles, nano-diamonds, metal ions) creating the opportunity to develop conductive composite materials with hierarchical structural organizations and multi-level functional properties, extending the applicability of CPs also to structural applications.