Degradation of an Aromatic Polyanhydride with Enhanced Thermal Properties.

Polyanhydrides have been studied as a drug delivery vehicles due to their surface-eroding behavior which results in zero-order release. However, many polyanhyrides have thermal and solubility properties that make them difficult to formulate for these applications. Poly[α,α'-bis(-carboxyphenoxy)--xylene] (CPX) is an aromatic polyanhydride that has thermal and solubility properties enabling facile processing.

Optimized Synthesis of Salicylate-based Poly(anhydride-esters).

The synthesis of a salicylate-based poly(anhydride-ester) was optimized to improve the overall efficiency and quality of the polymer. First, a new approach for the preparation of the polymer precursor minimizes the overall number of synthetic steps and increases the overall yield. Second, the melt-polymerization apparatus was modified to include dynamic mixing, which yields polymer with increased molecular weights on both the milligram and gram scale.