Hydroxy-terminated polyhydroxyalkanoates
AssigneeMonsanto Company
InventorsJawed Asrar, Devang T. Shah, Minhtien Tran
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Abstract
Hydroxyterminated PHA is produced by cultivating a PHA-producing microorganism in the presence of an aliphatic diol or an aliphatic polyol. High molecular weight hydroxy-terminated PHA is obtainable by the disclosed process, and is useful in the production of graft, block and random polymers and copolymers with other monomers, oligomers and polymers containing appropriate functionality and end group compatibility. The hydroxyterminated PHAs of the invention display improved thermal stability compared with PHAs not modified to contain increased end-group hydroxyl content. In addition, a branched PHA structure is provided by melt processing polyol terminated PHA.
Claims13
A process for producing a shaped polymeric article comprising providing a polymer at least partly made of a PHA modified to have an end group hydroxyl content greater than 50% and producing by extrusion, injection molding, coating, thermoforming, spinning, blow molding or calendering a shaped article therefrom, wherein the modified PHA is produced by cultivating a PHA-producing microorganism in the presence of an aliphatic diol or aliphatic polyol.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.