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Kinetics of the enzymatic degradation of poly(vinyl acetate) in solution
Author(s) -
Chattopadhyay Sujay,
Madras Giridhar
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal of applied polymer science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.575
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-4628
pISSN - 0021-8995
DOI - 10.1002/app.12403
Subject(s) - vinyl acetate , toluene , activation energy , polymer chemistry , kinetics , degradation (telecommunications) , polymer , molar mass distribution , yield (engineering) , materials science , sulfonic acid , chemistry , polystyrene , copolymer , chemical engineering , organic chemistry , composite material , telecommunications , physics , quantum mechanics , computer science , engineering
The enzymatic degradability of poly(vinyl acetate) was investigated in toluene solutions at various temperatures with hog pancreas lipase. The polymer degraded by specific scission to yield oligomeric products with a molecular weight of 700. Continuous distribution kinetics were used to determine the rate coefficients. The variation of the rate coefficients with the temperature indicated an optimum at 55°C. The p ‐toluene sulfonic acid catalyzed degradation of poly(vinyl acetate) was also investigated. The degradation mechanism was random chain scission, and the energy of activation for degradation was determined from the variation of the rate coefficients with the temperature. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 89: 2579–2582, 2003