The Synthesis and Characterization of Poly(silyl ester)s as a New Family of Degradable Polymers with Attunable Degradation Rates

摘要

Applications for polymers are numerous and diverse, because of their unique physical and mechanical properties that resulted from the covalent bonding of small molecules. In many eases, materials that are extremely resistant to chemicals, heat, radiation, wear, etc, are required. However, there has been a rapidly growing interest in macromolecules that have adequate properties to perform a certain function, followed by the deliberate erosion to innocuous small molecules. To a large extent, this interest has been accelerated by demands for materials in biomedical applications' and for environmental conservation.' Most often, the mode of degradation involves hydrolytic cleavage of a functional group, and a number of different types of hydroytically-labile functionalities have been studied to obtain materials with broadly-ranging stabilities.3