| 초록 |
Bacterial poly(3-hydroxyalkanoate)s (PHAs) are interesting materials in that these materials are biodegradable and these materials are non-petroleum based renewable resources. Although their high production costs prevent them from commercialization, some of these polymers have good possibilities to be used as specialty polymers. Among such polymers are poly(3-hydroxyundecanoate) (PHU) where every repeating unit contains one terminal olefin group. The terminal olefin group can be utilized as the reaction center for numerous chemical reactions. We have been proposing that oligomers of PHAs, especially those of PHU, would be useful as macromers for preparing new types of degradable polymers. In this report, we have investigated hydrolysis of PHU dissolved in tetrahydrofuran in the presence of specified amounts of sodium hydroxide. The pattern of degradation and yield of products suggested that hydrolysis by NaOH preceed in more exo than endo degradation. |
