Studies on the enzymatic hydrolysis of polyesters I. Low molecular mass model esters and aliphatic polyesters

The bio-catalysed cleavage of ester bonds in low molecular mass model esters and aliphatic polyesters was studied in detail with the aim to gain improved information about the underlying mechanism and the parameters controlling polyester degradation. Among various hydrolytic enzymes the lipase of Pseudomonas species (PsL) was chosen for the investigations. In the heterogeneous phase system the specific hydrolysis rate of the esters was constant as long as free substrate surface was available. In addition to aliphatic low molecular mass model esters, also cycloaliphatic and aromatic esters were cleaved by PsL, indicating that a steric hindrance of the enzymatic ester cleavage is not the predominant controlling factor in polyester degradation. However, the cleavage rates of the aliphatic model esters are larger by more than an order of magnitude. For aliphatic polyesters the temperature difference between the melting point of the polymer and the temperature where degradation takes place (ΔT_mt), turned out to be the primary controlling parameter for polyester degradation with the lipase. Only if ΔT_mt<30 °C, a measurable enzymatic degradation rate is found. ΔT_mt can be regarded as a measure of the mobility of the polyesters chains in the crystalline domains, necessary for the access of the esters to the active site of the lipase. Though aliphatic homopolyesters are seemingly very similar with regard to their chemical structure and reactivity of the ester bonds, their enzymatic degradation rates still differ significantly even at the same ΔT_mt. These differences have obviously to be attributed to small changes in the chemical structure, as, for instance, the C number of the aliphatic diacid.