Preparation and characterization of degradation tunable poly(ε-caprolactone) using a Sn(Oct)2/BF3 dual catalyst

✍ Scribed by G. Jiang; I. A. Jones; C. D. Rudd; G. S. Walker

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 75 KB
• Volume: 110
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-8995
• DOI: 10.1002/app.28967

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Tailoring the degradation rate of poly(ε‐caprolactone) (PCL) was found to be easily accomplished by the polymerization of ε‐caprolactone using a Sn(Oct)~2~/BF~3~ dual catalyst. The resulting PCL contained BF~3~, which acts as a hydrolytic degradation catalyst for PCL. The degradation rate of the polymer was controlled by the concentration of BF~3~ in the polymer matrix. At lower BF~3~ concentrations (<0.002 mol dm^−3^), the degradation rate was linearly proportional to the BF~3~ concentration. At higher BF~3~ concentrations, the degradation rate rapidly increased, significantly deviating from the linear relationship between degradation rate and BF~3~ concentration. The system was found to be very versatile, producing PCL with degradation rates ranging from a half‐life of 0.9–46 weeks. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008