Thermal degradation and stability of sodium hyaluronate in solid state

The kinetics and mechanism of depolymerisation of solid sodium hyaluronate at elevated temperatures and various pH have been investigated. Depolymerisation was found to be governed by random chain scission. The activation energy at neutral pH was found to be 127 kJ/mol. The solid polymer was most stable at neutral pH. Results suggest the depolymerisation mechanism in solid- and solution state to be the same. Correlation of log intrinsic viscosity to log weight-average molecular weight was investigated to ensure high quality data for polymer size. Based on more than sixty hyaluronate samples spanning from 0.4 to 2.3 MDa, it was concluded that a second order polynomial regression gives a better fit than the linear regression offered by classical Mark-Houwink-Kuhn-Sakurada description. This finding was supported by literature data and could be expanded to other simple, well behaving linear polymers, such as polystyrene and polyethylene.