Ilika Plc's High Throughput polymer development has been successfully applied to the development of biocompatible polymers. Ilika Plc has developed a polymer synthesis method where a multitude of 12 to 24 polymer formulations can be created simultaneously.
Inkjet Printing:
Ilika Plc's inkjet system works in a similar way to a conventional inkjet printer that is commonly used to print documents. The inkjet printer has 4 base colours (sources), and blends them as required to create more than 10,000 colours. In a similar way, Ilika Plc's inkjet system takes up to 96 polymers and monomers (sources) which can create millions of different polymers. Ilika typically prints a large number (typically 2000) of small spots of polymers (100-400 microns) onto glass slides (25mm x 75mm) or microarrays, which can then be subjected to characterisation. Ilika Plc utilises this system in three different ways:
- Inkjet Printing: re-printing of Ilika’s proprietary polymers
- Inkjet Blending: blending of (up to 96) polymers to create novel polymers
- Inkjet Synthesis: blending of (up to 96) monomers and subjecting the mixtures to polymerisation.
Contact Printing:
Ilika Plc is also able to prepare microarrays using its contact printing facility. This employs contact pins to physically collect the sources from their containers, and placing small droplets onto the microarray. This requires the preparation of the mixtures prior to printing, and it allows the synthesis of polymers samples that have different morphologies to those prepared by inkjet synthesis.