Enzymatic synthesis
AssigneeBaxenden Chemicals Limited
InventorsFalmai Binns, Alan Taylor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A process for producing a polyester comprising as repeating units (i) residues of at least one aliphatic hydroxycarboxylic acid, aminocarboxylic acid, or derivative thereof; or (ii) residues of (a) at least one aliphatic dicarboxylic acid or derivative thereof, (b) at least one aliphatic hydroxyamine, diol, polyol, diamine or polyamine, and optionally (c) at least one aliphatic hydroxycarboxylic acid, aminocarboxylic acid or derivative thereof; comprises reacting the components defined in (i) or components defined in (ii) in the absence of a solvent and in the presence of a lipase.
Claims22
A process for producing a polyester comprising as repeating units
- (i) residues of at least one aliphatic hydroxycarboxylic acid monomer selected from the group consisting of aliphatic hydroxycarboxylic acids and esters and anhydrides thereof or
- (ii) residues of (a) at least one aliphatic dicarboxylic acid monomer selected from the group consisting of aliphatic dicarboxylic acids and esters and anhydrides thereof, (b) at least one aliphatic hydroxyamine, diol or polyol, and optionally (c) at least aliphatic hydroxycarboxylic acid monomer selected from the group consisting of aliphatic hydroxycarboxylic acids and esters and anhydrides thereof;
- which process comprises reacting the components defined in (i) or components defined in (ii) in the absence of a solvent and in the presence of a lipase, the molar ratio of acid groups to hydroxyl groups in the reactants being 1:1 to 1:1.1.
A process according to any one of the preceding claims wherein the resulting polyester has a weight average molecular weight of 200 to 10,000 Da.
A process for producing a polyester comprising as repeating units
- (i) residues of at least one aliphatic hydroxycarboxylic acid monomer selected from the group consisting of aliphatic hydroxycarboxylic acids and esters and anhydrides thereof or
- (ii) residues of (a) at least one aliphatic dicarboxylic acid monomer selected from the group consisting of aliphatic dicarboxylic acids and esters and anhydrides thereof, (b) at least one aliphatic hydroxyamine, diol or polyol, and optionally (c) at least aliphatic hydroxycarboxylic acid monomer selected from the group consisting of aliphatic hydroxycarboxylic acids and esters and anhydrides thereof;
- which process comprises reacting the components defined in (i) or components defined in (ii) in the absence of a solvent and in the presence of a lipase, the molar ratio of acid groups to hydroxyl groups in the reactants being 1:1 to 1:1.1, wherein the lipase is removed from the reaction mixture when substantially all the carboxylic acid bearing monomers have reacted to form acid/base adducts.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.