Catalysts and temperature driven melt polycondensation reaction for helical poly(ester-urethane)s based on natural L-amino acids

Abstract

Catalyst and temperature driven melt polycondensation reaction was developed for natural L-amino acid monomers to produce new classes of poly(ester-urethane)s. Wide ranges of catalysts from alkali, alkali earth metal, transition metal and lanthanides were developed for the condensation of amino acid monomers with diols to yield poly(ester-urethane)s. A-B Diblock and A-B-A triblock species were obtained by carefully choosing mono- or diols in model reactions. More than two dozens of transition metal and lanthanide catalysts were identified for the polycondensation to yield high molecular weight poly(ester-urethane)s. Theoretical studies revealed that the carbonyl carbon in ester possessed low electron density compared to the carbonyl carbon in urethane which driven the thermo-selective polymerization process. Optical purity of the L-amino acid residues in the melt polycondensation process was investigated using D- and L-isomers and the resultant products were analyzed by chiral-HPLC and CD spectroscopy. CD analysis revealed that the amino acid based polymers were self-assembled as β-sheet and polyproline type II secondary structures. Electron and atomic force microscopic analysis confirmed the formation of helical nano-fibrous morphology in poly(ester-urethane)s. The newly developed melt polycondensation process is very efficient and optimized for wide range of catalysts to produce diverse polymer structures from natural L-amino acids. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2015