P-1
Green Polymer Chemistry: Synthesis and Characterization of POLY(alpha-LIPOIC ACID)
MARJAN.A. KASHFIPOUR, EMILY.Q. ROSENTHAL-KIM, JUDIT E. PUSKAS
The University of Akron, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Akron, OH.
Tel: 330-972-6203, Email:jpuskas@uakron.edu
ABSTRACT
Poly(α-lipoic acid) has been made by thermal polymerization of α-lipoic acid, resulting in a very high molecular weight (Mn ~ 1 million g/mol) rubbery polymer with Tg ~ -14 °C. Recently we discovered that poly(α-lipoic acid) can be produced by a green chemistry method in which the monomer solution is simply injected into water. This simple method yielded polymers up Mn ~ 10 million g/mol. In this study the effect of polymerization conditions such as pH, temperature, solvent quality and monomer concentration on the properties of the polymer will be discussed.