Super Absorbent Polymer: Got Your Life Covered in All Aspects

Material, energy, and information are the three pillars of science and technology. Material science is one of the leading disciplines in the world today. The development of human life and society is always inseparable from materials, and the emergence of new materials promotes the development of life and society. Among all kinds, polymer materials are of epoch-making significance to human life since they are used in all aspects of life with their unique functions and advantages. Super absorbent polymer (SAP) is a new type of polymer, of which application scope is continuously expanding.

• Features of SAP

SAP has high water absorption and can absorb ion-free water hundreds or thousands of times its own weight. The water absorption rate is also surprising with each gram absorbing hundreds of grams of non-ionized water within 30 seconds. High water retention makes it difficult for water to be squeezed out under external pressure after absorbing water. In addition, the gel formed by the water-absorbing SAP is relatively soft and adaptable to the human body, causing no irritation, no inflammation to the human body.

• Traditional Applications of SAP

SAP is a new type of functional polymer material that has been rapidly developed in recent years. With outstanding advantages, it is widely used in various fields.

Hygiene products: diapers, sanitary pads, absorbent paper.

Medicine and medical care: medical test strips; ointments; medical bandages and cotton balls; anti-infective artificial skin; contact lenses, sustained-release drug substrates.

Cosmetics: emulsified cosmetics, powder cosmetics, fragrances.

Industry: expandable rubber, cables, batteries, coatings.

Agriculture and forestry: plant growth promoters and regulators, seedling transplantation preservatives, fruit and vegetable preservatives.

Others: concrete, expansion toys, inks, adhesives, dyeing, anti-fogging, heat storage agents, fire fighting materials.

• SAP's Novel Application—Biotechnology

Recently, scholars from South Korea tried to use SAPs to concentrate extracellular vesicles (EVs), and evaluated the feasibility of this strategy in application.

"EVs, such as exosomes and microvesiclesare, are tiny particles that are continuously released by cells. Since they originate from cells, they contain cellular components such as proteins, peptides, lipids, carbohydrates, DNA and RNA. They are promising new biomarkers for liquid biopsy and also have therapeutic potential to be developed. For example, exosome vehicles have been proved to be effective for drug delivery." introduced by a scientist from Creative Biolabs, a biotech company focusing on exosome-related therapeutics development.

Researchers have developed the first single-step method for EV concentration using SAP microbeads. Based on the difference between the diameter of the water channel of the SAP beads and the diameter of EVs, the researchers hypothesized that the SAP beads will absorb relatively small molecules, and EVs will be excluded and concentrated. The final research results show that the method is simple, effective, scalable and does not require any special equipment, and can be widely used in therapeutic or diagnostic applications that require EV enhancement.

In a word, SAP is a kind of polymer material with a very wide range of uses and has great market potential. It is of great significance to develop and apply the various functions of SAP.

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