Effect of Chain Stereoconfiguration on Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) Crystallization Kinetics
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2022-08Autor
Caputo, Maria Rosaria
Tang, Xiaoyan
Westlie, Andrea H.
Sardon Muguruza, Haritz
Chen, Eugene Y.-X.
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Biomacromolecules 23(9) : 3847-3859 (2022)
Resumen
Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) is naturally accumulated by bacteria but can also be synthesized chemically. Its processability is limited, as it tends to degrade at temperatures above its melting temperature; hence, investigation into crystallization kinetics and morphology of PHB materials of both natural and synthetic origins is of great need and interest to get a better understanding of structure-property relationship. Accordingly, this contribution reports a first study of the crystallization and morphology of synthetic PHB materials of different molecular weights. These synthetic PHBs are racemic mixtures (50/50 mol %) of R and S chain configurations and are compared with an enantiopure bacterial R-PHB. Nonisothermal and isothermal crystallization studies show that R and S chains of PHB can cocrystallize in the same unit cell as the R-PHB. Most significantly, the results show that the presence of S chains decreases the overall crystallization rate, which could enhance the processability and industrialization of PHB-based materials.