Synthesis of New Biodegradable Crosslinked Polyesters for Biomedical Applcations and Their In-Vitro Degradation

Two kinds of new aliphatic diols were synthesized by the ring-opening reaction of lactide and glycolide with 1,4-butanediol, a difunctional initiator, in the presence of stannous octoate. The resulting aliphatic diols were melt-polymerized with D-tartaric acid at 150 ℃ to produce new crosslinkable polyesters. They were reacted with hexamethylene diisocyanate in THF at 65 ℃ in a teflon mold for 24 h to prepare sequentially ordered crosslinked polyesters (BD/LT/GL/D-tartarate). Degradation of the prepared yellow crosslinked films was carried out in a buffer solution in order to examine the effect of time, pH, temperature and crosslinking degree on their degradation rate and mechanism. The rate of degradation increased with an increase in pH and temperature, but it decreased with increasing degree of crosslinkage incorporated into the crosslinked polyesters. We also found that the crosslinked polymers were converted into the acidic compounds such as lactic, glycolic, and D-tartaric acids during the degradation.