(674f) Influence of Composition on of Physiochemical Properties of Lactic Acid and Sebacic Acid Copolymers

There is an unmet need for synthetic degradable materials with a wide range of physiochemical properties in several industries. Synthetic biodegradable polymers, such as polyesters and polyanhydrides, are well investigated for biomedical applications due to their biocompatibility and their ability to degrade in aqueous systems. Polyesters and polyanhydrides have different physiochemical properties such as: degradation time, degradation method, and thermal properties. These synthetic biodegradable polymers can breakdown into individual monomers inside the body through hydrolysis. Poly(ester anhydrides)s are hybrid polymers which have wide range of properties.

In this work we synthesized random copolymers through polycondensation using D,L-lactic acid (LA) and sebacic acid (SA) monomers. Six distinct random copolymers were synthesized by varying the ratio of LA to SA monomers. The physiochemical properties such as molecular weight, structure, thermal properties, degree of crystallinity, and microphase separation were characterized by, ¹H-NMR, FT-IR DSC, TGA, XRD, and AFM respectively. Findings revealed the critical role of composition on the resulting properties of copolymer P(LA:SA). molecular weight, melting temperature, degree of crystallinity increased with increase in sebacic acid concentration. The degradable properties such as rate of degradation and degradation method were characterized by subjecting particles formulated from the copolymers to controlled aqueous degradation studies.