Applications of Polyrotaxane and Slide-ring Materials

This final chapter deals with various applications of cyclodextrin-based polyrotaxane and slide-ring materials. First, the biomedical applications of polyrotaxane are reviewed: biodegradable polyrotaxanes for drug delivery systems, ligand-conjugated polyrotaxanes with multivalent interactions between ligands and receptors, and so on. Slide-ring gels consisting of α-cyclodextrin and poly(ethylene glycol) show high biosafety and biocompatibility. In addition, a variety of slide-ring gels exhibit photo-responsive swelling and shrinking behaviors, nonlinear permeation flow results, and extremely stretchable thermo-responsive properties. The slide-ring materials, some of which are on the market and commercially available, are also applied to elastomers, rubbers, and resins in the solid state.