Updates on the Chemical and Enzymatic Treatments of Poly(styrene-co-divinylbenzene) and Poly(methyl methacrylate)...

Polymer particles, including synthetic polymers such as poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and poly(styrene-co-divinylbenzene) (P(S-co-DVB)) beads, have been widely used as enzymatic supports and drug carriers. In this sense, it is important to understand the stabilization or degradation of such polymer matrices under specific chemical and enzymatic media. For this reason, the present work aims to evaluate the current status and prospects of treatments of PMMA and P(S-co-DVB) particles intended for biotechnological and biomedical applications under basic, acidic, and enzymatic environments. Initially, a bibliometric analysis of the enzymatic depolymerization of these materials was conducted, followed by the experimental evaluation of the degradation behavior of PMMA and P(S-co-DVB) under basic, acidic, and enzymatic solutions. This way, as depolymerizing agents, the activity of distinct enzymes (amylase, cutinase, lipase, and protease) was investigated on chemically treated materials. It has been shown that over the past 20 years, publications on this subject have increased by 100%. For P(S-co-DVB) samples, neither alkaline nor acidic conditions affected the molar mass distributions of polymer chains. However, PMMA particles showed slight mass losses (1.5%), indicating their recalcitrant aspect. Enzymatic treatment increased the methanol concentration in the supernatant, suggesting the hydrolysis of PMMA ester groups, with cutinase, lipase, and amylase being the most active enzymes. Despite the high stability of these materials, some degradation was observed in high specific area PMMA nanomaterials, highlighting that, mainly, for biomedical uses a deep polymer degradation investigation may be carried out. Thus, considering the growing use of P(S-co-DVB) and PMMA micro and nanoparticles in pharmaceutical and biocatalysis applications, it is evident that conducting a proper evaluation and design of products depending on their final use is important.