Joachim C Lentz, Robert Cavanagh, Cara Moloney, Bruno Falcone Pin, Kristoffer Kortsen, Harriet R Fowler, Philippa L Jacob, Eduards Krumins, Charlotte Clark, Fabricio Machado, Nicholas Breitkreuz, Ben Cale, Amy R Goddard, Jonathan D Hirst, Vincenzo Taresco, Steven M Howdle
N -Hydroxyethyl acrylamide was used as a functional initiator for the enzymatic ring-opening polymerisation of ε-caprolactone and δ-valerolactone. N -Hydroxyethyl acrylamide was found not to undergo self-reaction in the presence of Lipase B from Candida antarctica under the reaction conditions employed. By contrast, this is a major problem for 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate and 2-hydroxyethyl acrylate which both show significant transesterification issues leading to unwanted branching and cross-linking. Surprisingly, N -hydroxyethyl acrylamide did not react fully during enzymatic ring-opening polymerisation...
November 1, 2022: Polymer Chemistry