Enzymatic Synthesis and Characterization of Hydrophilic Sugar Based Polyesters and Their Modification with Stearic Acid.

Biodegradable and hydrophilic functional polyesters were synthesized enzymatically using xylitol or d-sorbitol together with divinyl adipate and lipase B from (CAL-B). The resulting polyesters had pendant OH-groups from their sugar units which were esterified to different degrees with stearic acid chloride. The structure and the degrees of polymerization of the resulting graft copolymers based on poly(xylitol adipate) and poly(d-sorbitol adipate) were characterized by ¹H NMR spectroscopy and SEC.