• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.309-314
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• 2012

To control degradation rate of biodegradable poly(lactide)s (PLA), the stereochemical PLAs with different ratios of $d$-lactide and $l$-lactide units were synthesized by the ring open polymerization and a degradation behavior was measured by a Langmuir film balance. Degradation rates of mixture monolayers on alkaline subphase were investigated as a function of optical purity of mixture component, 100, 99, 97 and 95%. As increasing their optical purity, melting temperatures of mixtures from stereocomplexation increased. The degradation rate of mixture monolayer with 100% optical purity was much slower than that of each homopolymer one and the others showed 2 step degradation behaviors. In the first step, the degradation which is faster than that of each homopolymer occurs in the uncomplexed region, and secondly, the degradation occurred in the complexed region which showed similar degradation rate to that of 100% optical purity. These results indicate that the alkaline degradation of stereochemical PLAs could be controlled by stereochemistry and stereocomplexation between enantiomer PLAs.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.453-460
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• 2015

Engineering the polylactide via stereocomplexation with supercritical fluid (SCF) technology paved way to fabricate polymers with enhanced thermal and mechanical properties. We aimed to establish a SCF medium with excellent solubility for PLA without any additional solvent/co-solvent. We, therefore, employed supercritical dimethyl ether to synthesize 100% stereocomplex polylactide from high molecular weight homopolymers with an excellent yield. The remarkable solubility of the homopolymers in dimethyl ether is the key for quick conversion to s-PLA. This study proves a rapid synthesis route of dry s-PLA powder with sc-DME at 250 bar, $70^{\circ}C$ and 1.5 h, which are reasonably achievable processing parameters compared to the conventional methods. The degree of stereocomplexation was evaluated under the effect of pressures, temperatures, times, homopolymer-concentrations and molecular weights. An increment in the degree of stereocomplexation was observed with increased temperature and pressure. Complete conversion to s-PLA was obtained for PLLA and PDLA with $M_n{\sim}200kg{\cdot}mol^{-1}$ with a total homopolymer to total DME ratio of 6:100% w/w at prescribed reaction conditions. The degree of stereocomplexation was determined by DSC and confirmed by XRD. Considerable improvement in thermo-mechanical properties of s-PLA was observed. DSC and TGA analyses proved a $50^{\circ}C$ enhancement in melting transition and a high onset temperature for thermal degradation of s-PLA respectively.