Degradation study of poly(lactic-L(+)-co-glycolic acid) in chloroform

Polymer/solvent interaction has been of great interest in many fields, such as scaffold processing, polymer recycling and drug delivery system (DDS), among others. It has been reported that the effect of solvent on polymers could determine the final physical and chemical properties in specific applications. Thus, this article describes a degradation study of poly(lactic-L(+)-co-glycolic acid), or PLGA, in the presence of chloroform. The PLGA polymer was synthetized by ring opening polymerization (ROP). Five lactic/glycolic acid volumetric ratios (90/10, 80/20, 70/30, 60/40 and 50/50) were used to prepare PLGA. Copolymers were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and static light scattering (SLS). Copolymer degradation was induced using chloroform as the solvent. FTIR was used to follow variations on the functional groups of copolymers during the PLGA degradation process. The study was conducted using the evidence provided from the modifications of OH wavelength bands (3000-3500 cm-1) obtained from FTIR. A viable reaction scheme to explain the degradation of the copolymer was developed based on the monomolecular constant reaction rates generated by the decomposition dynamic of OH groups.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Rueda,C., Vallejo,I., Corea,M., Palacios,E. G., Chairez,I.
Format:	Digital revista
Language:	English
Published:	Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, División de Ciencias Básicas e Ingeniería 2015
Online Access:	http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1665-27382015000300023
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