A green route to synthesize poly(lactic acid)-based macromonomers in scCO2 for biodegradable nanoparticle production

Poly(lactic acid)-based macromonomers, aimed at biomedical applications and with well-defined average chain length, are produced through catalytic ring-opening polymerization of L,L-lactide co-initiated by a co-monomer bearing a double bond. Reactions have been carried out in supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) at different temperatures, ranging from 90 to 130 °C. The resulting oligomers have been characterized by different techniques (1H-NMR, 13CNMR, MALDI-TOF, ESI, GPC, FT-IR, TGA), which show that oligomers with narrower molecular weight distribution are produced at the lowest temperature. In addition, a significant reduction of the impact of the secondary reactions has been found at th…