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Updated: Aug 2, 2026

Isolation and Compositional Analysis of Plant Cuticle Lipid Polyester Monomers
Published on: November 22, 2015
Liquid chromatographic-mass spectrometric studies on the in vitro degradation of a poly(ether ester) block copolymer
Heiko Hayen1, Audrey A Deschamps, Dirk W Grijpma
1Department of Chemical Analysis and MESA+ Research Institute, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
A detailed study on the in vitro degradation of a poly(ethylene glycol) and poly(butylene terephthalate) (PEOT/PBT) segmented block copolymer was carried out using liquid chromatography/electrospray-mass spectrometry. Accelerated hydrolysis of PEOT/PBT was achieved by placing the material for 14 days in a refluxing phosphate buffered saline (pH 7.4) solution. All major degradation products and several side-products were identified using both the positive and the negative ion mode. The data indicate that degradation does not only occur in the "soft", but also in the "hard" segments of the polymer. Liquid chromatographic separation is required to distinguish between degradation products with different sequences but identical molecular mass. The addition of ammonium and sodium ions provided important complementary information on the number of monomer units present in the degradation products.
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