a research team at the university of illinois at urbanachampaign has developed a lowcost hydrolyzable polymer by reversing the properties of polyurea, an important bonding material. this breakthrough offers an alternative solution to packaging, tissue engineering, and drug delivery.hydrolyzable polymers have been used in a wide range of biomedical applications, such as transient medical implantsdevices and surgical sutures. polyurea materials are commonly used in painting, coating, and adhesives. it is extremely stable, thanks to the highly inert ureabond, making it ideal for longlasting applications.the research team leveraged inventive chemistry to create a class of polyhindered ureas phus, also known as hindered urea bondcontaining polymeric materials. these polymers are not only low cost, but can also be made to degrade over a given time period, thus making them extremely useful in agricultural and biomedical applications.phus can be hydrolyzed within a matter of days, unlike standard polyurea that are extremely stable against hydrolysis. given that &lsquohindrance&rsquo is the major cause of bond destabilization, phus&rsquo hydrolysis kinetics can be adjusted to suit a particular application. phus can possibly serve as ecofriendly and sustainable                           materials. hindered urea bondcontaining polymeric materials phus are                                                                                                                                             cheap polymers that can be designed to degrade over a                                                                                                                                                                           specified time period. image catherine yao.the study shows how phus can be leveraged to design polymeric materials that are water degradable and can be easily produced by combining multifunctional isocyanates and amines to extend the group of hydrolyzable polymers.hydrolyzable polymers have also been applied in the design of controlled release systems in agriculture and food industries and used as degradable, environmentally friendly plastics and packaging materials. these applications usually require short functioning time, complete degradation and clearance of materials after their use.jianjun chengassociate professor of materials science and engineeringuniversity of illinoisin addition, the new phus offer significant benefits when compared to other hydrolyzable polymers. they can be developed with lowcost chemical precursors in ambient conditions through clean chemistry without any byproducts or the need for a catalyst.this allows endusers to exploit the copolymer recipe for certain applications without the necessity for complex synthesis apparatus. 
