Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
industrial waste pollution and the usage of polymer materials. Experts state that by 2010 the
production of polymers had amounted 260 mln. tons and the estimated annual growth of their
production is going reach 5.5% per year aggravating the current pollution situation. There can
be observed a solution of the pollution problem which consists in the implementation of
innovative biotechnology. So, two directions can be traced in the development of
biotechnology:
The production of biodestructive polymers on the basis of renewable natural
materials (starch, corn);
The production of biodestructive polymers on the basis of synthetic and natural
polysaccharides (starch, cellulose, chitin, chitosan) [1].
The researches aimed at the creation of the biodestructive compositions of this type are
described mainly in patent literature [2-8]. The world's leading companies such as BASF,
DuPont, BAYER have
already started the production.
The main achievements in the creation of the biodegradable materials and the unsolved
problems in this field are presented in scientific reviews [9-10]. It is remarkable that all the
analysed polymers are heterogeneous-chain polymers containing essential and amide
connection, and natural polysaccharide polymers. Yet these achievements do not resolve the
contamination problem caused by the production and usage of large and middle polymers on
the basis of the monomers of vinyl row, which will definitely be manufactured by Russian
and foreign producers in the nearest decades.
Thus, the task of the creation biodegradable materials based on these particular polymers
is urgent.
At present there is a limited number of regular fundamental studies revealing the impact
of particular factors upon the process of the biodestruction of polymers of various chemical
structure and carbon-chain ones in particular [9-10]. To understand the mechanism of
biodegradation it is important to consider not only the physical-biological aspects of the
process such as temperature, oxygen, moist, microorganism impact, the chemical nature of
the polymer itself, but also its biodegradation products, molecular mass (the effect of the
molecular mass of the copolymer and the length of sections of the synthetic fragments of its
chains is being highly debatable now) which is essentially important [9].
The latter play an important role in the organization of the supramolecular structure of the
polymer, the development of crystallinity zones in it, enzyme-absorption active centres, and
probably in their activity. A comprehensive approach to the assertion of the dependence of
(co)polymer biodestruction ability on their structure, compound and molecular mass with the
implementation of modern physical-mechanical, analytical and rheological research methods
will give an opportunity to obtain new data about the bioconversion of polymer compositions
and assert the fundamental principles of the creation of the materials with biodestruction-time
control based on the polymers of vinyl row combined with natural ones.
Thus, the purpose of the given research is to study the mechanisms of the initial
biodegradation stages of the compositions based on natural polymers and synthtical vinyl-row
ones.
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