• Journal of Adhesion and Interface
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.19-25
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• 2006

Since the enzymatic degradation of microbial poly(hydroxylalkanoate)s (PHAs), such as poly[(R)-3-hydroxybutyrate] and poly[(R)-3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate] initially occurs by a surface erosion process, their degradation behaviors can be controlled by the change of surface property. In order to control the rate of enzymatic degradation, plasma modification technique was applied to change the surface property of microbial PHAs. The surface hydrophobic and hydrophilic properties of PHA films were introduced by $CF_3H$ and $O_2$ plasma exposures, respectively. The enzymatic degradation was carried out at $37^{\circ}C$ in 0.1 M potassium phosphate buffer (pH 7.4) in the presence of an extracellular PHB depolymerase purified from Alcaligenes facalis T1. The results showed that the significant retardation of initial enzymatic erosion of $CF_3H$ plasma-treated PHAs was observed due to the hydrophobicity and the enzyme inactivity of the fluorinated surface layers while the erosion rate of $O_2$ plasma-treated PHAs was not accelerated.