TY - JOUR A1 - Soulis, S. A1 - Triantou, D. A1 - Weidner, Steffen A1 - Falkenhagen, Jana A1 - Simitzis, J. T1 - Structural analysis of biodegradable low-molecular mass copolyesters based on glycolic acid, adipic acid and 1,4 butanediol and correlation with their hydrolytic degradation N2 - Copolyesters of glycolic acid combined with adipic acid and 1,4 butanediol were synthesized, their in vitro hydrolytic degradation was studied and correlated with their structure. The hydrolytic degradation of the copolyesters was directly related with the degree of crystallinity and the diameter of the crystallites. It was found that glycolate units disturb the ordering of the butylene adipate units, which results in a decrease of the crystallinity. By comparing the hydrolysis parameters of synthesized copolyesters with those of similar aliphatic copolyesters a hydrolysis mechanism was proposed. According to this mechanism, the degradation takes place not only by the loss of end units, but also through the removal of larger segments. MALDI-TOF MS data showed that the possibility of a copolyester macromolecule forming cyclic structures correlates with the arrangement of ester groups in the macromolecules and the structure of the linear segments. KW - Biodegradable KW - Biopolymers KW - Hydrolytic degradation KW - Ft-IR KW - Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time-of-flight-mass spectrometry KW - MALDI-TOF-MS PY - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polymdegradstab.2012.09.002 SN - 0141-3910 SN - 1873-2321 VL - 97 IS - 11 SP - 2091 EP - 2103 PB - Applied Science Publ. CY - London AN - OPUS4-26723 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -