Blends of crystalline and amorphous poly(lactide). III. Hydrolysis of solution-cast blend films

✍ Scribed by Hideto Tsuji; Yoshito Ikada

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 195 KB
• Volume: 63
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-8995
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-4628(19970214)63:7<855::aid-app5>3.0.co;2-p

✦ Synopsis

Hydrolysis of blend films prepared from amorphous poly(DL-lactide) (a-PLA) and isotactic crystalline poly(D-or L-lactide) (c-PLA) having different c-PLA contents [X Å c-PLA/(a-PLA / c-PLA)] was performed in phosphate buffered solution of pH 7.4 at 37ЊC. The blend films before and after hydrolysis were studied using gel permeation chromatography, tensile testing, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and optical rotation. The mass of the blend films remaining after hydrolysis of longer than 20 months was larger with the increasing initial X. The tensile strength of the blend films remained unchanged in the early stage of hydrolysis, followed by a rapid decrease with time, the duration of period for the tensile strength remaining unchanged was longer for the blend films of smaller X. The change in crystallinity, molecular weight, and specific optical rotation during hydrolysis of the blend films revealed that degradation took place preferentially in the amorphous region than in the crystalline region of the blend films. A double melting peak was observed in the DSC spectra of blend films with X Å 0.75 and 0.5 after hydrolysis for 20 months. The time difference in the induction of reduction between the tensile strength and the mass due to hydrolysis of the blend films increased with an increase in X.