Issue 28, 2016

Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB)-based triblock copolymers: synthesis of hydrophobic PHB/poly(benzyl β-malolactonate) and amphiphilic PHB/poly(malic acid) analogues by ring-opening polymerization

Abstract

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are biocompatible and biodegradable polyesters widely used for biomedical applications. Amphiphilic triblock copolymers with a PHB hydrophobic segment recently demonstrated attractive advantages such as high colloidal stability and low critical micellar concentration (CMC) values for the elaboration of drug delivery systems. Our approach aims at associating PHB with a fully biodegradable hydrophilic block to access new self-assembled systems with unique potential. Well-defined α,ω-dihydroxy telechelic PHA-based hydrophobic triblock copolymers with tunable segments length were synthesized by the controlled ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of benzyl β-malolactonate, using polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) diol/Nd(OTf)3 as the catalytic system. Remarkably, the reaction proceeds with the selective oxygen–acyl bond cleavage of the β-lactone. The corresponding amphiphilic copolymers were then obtained by hydrogenolysis. These copolymers are the only examples of fully biodegradable PHA-PHB-PHA triblock copolymers. The hydrophilic weight fraction of the copolymers was tuned from 7 to 83% upon modulating the monomer loading thus affording the ability to next access different self-assembling architectures.

Graphical abstract: Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB)-based triblock copolymers: synthesis of hydrophobic PHB/poly(benzyl β-malolactonate) and amphiphilic PHB/poly(malic acid) analogues by ring-opening polymerization

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
26 May 2016
Accepted
19 Jun 2016
First published
20 Jun 2016

Polym. Chem., 2016,7, 4603-4608

Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB)-based triblock copolymers: synthesis of hydrophobic PHB/poly(benzyl β-malolactonate) and amphiphilic PHB/poly(malic acid) analogues by ring-opening polymerization

G. Barouti and S. M. Guillaume, Polym. Chem., 2016, 7, 4603 DOI: 10.1039/C6PY00910G

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