Synthesis and Chemical Recycling of Novel Poly(ester-urethane)s Using an Enzyme

✍ Scribed by Yasuyuki Soeda; Kazunobu Toshima; Shuichi Matsumura

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 195 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1616-5187
• DOI: 10.1002/mabi.200400176

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Summary: A series of enzymatically recyclable poly(ester‐urethane)s consisting of a biodegradable diurethane moiety as a hard segment and an ester moiety as an enzymatically cleavable linkage was chemo‐enzymatically prepared by two routes. The poly(ester‐urethane) was prepared by a) the ring‐opening polymerization of a cyclic ester‐urethane monomer synthesized via the transesterification reaction of biodegradable diurethanediol and dicarboxylate ester using lipase and b) the direct polycondensation of a diurethanediol and a dicarboxylate ester. A significantly higher molecular‐weight poly(ester‐urethane) having the highest molecular weight ($\overline M _{\rm w}$) of 101 000 was produced by the ring‐opening polymerization of the cyclic ester‐urethane monomer when compared with that produced by the polycondensation of the dicarboxylate ester with diurethanediol. The poly(ester‐urethane) was readily degraded by lipase into the corresponding cyclic oligomers; the oligomers were readily repolymerized by the ring‐opening polymerization using lipase for chemical recycling.
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