一种厌氧Thermoanaerobacterales水解酶在亚利发性和芳香性聚合物的活性

The introduction of polyesters has brought major development to the textile industry. The wrinkle-free behavior of polyester blends has eliminated the need for starching and ironing clothes.
Polyesters are commonly prepared from terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol; the crude product is known as poly(ethylene terephthalate) or PET. However, polyesters are synthesized industrially by transesterification of dimethyl terephthalate with ethylene glycol at 150 °C. The two reactants and the...

Overview
Hydrolysis is a chemical reaction in which the addition of water breaks down a polymer into its simpler monomer units. For example, peptides break into amino acids, carbohydrates into simple sugars, and DNA into nucleotides. Enzymes often facilitate these processes.
Hydrolysis Reverses Dehydration Synthesis
Complex carbohydrates can be broken down by breaking the bonds between individual sugar units. The reaction breaks a glycosidic bond as water is added to the compound. The...

The conversion of alkenes to macromolecules called polymers is a reaction of high commercial importance. The structure of the polymer is defined by a repeating unit, while the terminal groups are considered insignificant. The average degree of polymerization represents the number of repeating units in the polymer molecule and is denoted by the subscript n.

Hydrolysis of esters under acidic conditions proceeds through a nucleophilic acyl substitution. In the presence of excess water, the reaction proceeds in a reversible manner, forming carboxylic acids and alcohols.
During hydrolysis, the ester is first activated towards nucleophilic attack through the protonation of the carboxyl oxygen atom by the acid catalyst. The protonation makes the ester carbonyl carbon more electrophilic. In the next step, water acts as a nucleophile and adds to the...

In a dehydration reaction, a hydroxyl group in an alcohol is eliminated along with the hydrogen from an adjacent carbon. Here, the products are an alkene and a molecule of water. Dehydration of alcohols is generally achieved by heating in the presence of an acid catalyst. While the dehydration of primary alcohols requires high temperatures and acid concentrations, secondary and tertiary alcohols can lose a water molecule under relatively mild conditions.

Alkenes react with water in the presence of an acid to form an alcohol. In the absence of acid, hydration of alkenes does not occur at a significant rate, and the acid is not consumed in the reaction. Therefore, alkene hydration is an acid-catalyzed reaction.