Zeitschrift für Forschung und Entwicklung
Offener Zugang
ISSN: 2311-3278
ISSN: 2311-3278
Marek M Kowalczuk
Biodegradable polymers play an important role in human life, increasingly irreplaceable one. Knowledge on the relationships between their structure, properties and function is essential for prospective applications of such materials in the areas safe for human health and environment. When the development of biodegradable polymers was in its infancy the most crucial features were concentrated on the effect of macromolecular architecture, new monomer systems, polymerization mechanisms and different polymerization techniques on final biodegradable properties. Significant efforts have been directed towards specific areas, such as mechanisms of biodegradation, biocompatibility, processing conditions and potential applications in medicine, protection of environment and agro chemistry. However, such aspects like bio-safety of biodegradable polymers or nano-safety of their composites were and still are frequently neglected. In the endeavor to safe biodegradable polymers mass spectrometry methods are of particular importance in (co)polymers analyses due to their high sensitivity, selectivity, specificity and speed. Examples of the mass spectrometry studies for sequencing of biodegradable (co)polymers with the use of multi-stage electrospray mass spectrometry (ESI-MSn ) will be presented. The special emphasis will be given to the ESI-MSn applications in the synthesis of biodegradable copolyesters as well as ESI-MSn for identification of selected biodegradable polymers on the way of molecular labeling. The attempts to solve the difficult question regarding the molecular structure of biodegradable copolymers with relation to the specific area of applied research will be also discussed.