Zahra Nikmatuz, Wardhono Endarto Yudo, Ni'mah Hikmatun, Lugito Graecia, Widjaja Tri
Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Industrial Technology and Systems Engineering, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Surabaya 60111, Indonesia.
Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa, Cilegon 42435, Indonesia.
ACS Omega. 2025 Apr 9;10(15):14657-14665. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.4c07712. eCollection 2025 Apr 22.
Controlling oligomer chain length in lactic acid (LA) polycondensation is crucial for producing good properties of poly(lactic acid) (PLA). This study explores the use of ultrasonic pretreatment to reduce the water content of LA, aiming to optimize the polycondensation process and enhance the quality of PLA through ring-opening polymerization (ROP). The methodology involved varying ultrasonic treatment time and power during LA pretreatment, followed by polycondensation at the optimized temperature. The study results indicate that ultrasonic pretreatment effectively reduces the water content in LA, with optimal conditions found at 90 min and 75 W, yielding the lowest water content. The polycondensation process, conducted at a gradual temperature of 150 °C followed by 180 °C, resulted in the highest yield of 92.75% and a molecular weight of 25,126 g/mol for the oligomers. Ultrasonic pretreatment enhances water removal efficiency, reduces byproduct formation, and increases oligomer reactivity, resulting in higher-purity oligomers and improved chain length control. During the ROP stage, oligomers prepared through ultrasonic pretreatment produced PLA with a higher molecular weight and crystallinity.
控制乳酸（LA）缩聚过程中的低聚物链长对于制备具有良好性能的聚乳酸（PLA）至关重要。本研究探索了利用超声预处理来降低LA的含水量，旨在通过开环聚合（ROP）优化缩聚过程并提高PLA的质量。该方法包括在LA预处理过程中改变超声处理时间和功率，然后在优化温度下进行缩聚。研究结果表明，超声预处理有效地降低了LA中的含水量，在90分钟和75瓦的条件下发现了最佳条件，含水量最低。缩聚过程在150°C逐步升温至180°C的条件下进行，低聚物的产率最高达到92.75%，分子量为25,126 g/mol。超声预处理提高了脱水效率，减少了副产物的形成，并提高了低聚物的反应活性，从而得到更高纯度的低聚物并改善了链长控制。在ROP阶段，通过超声预处理制备的低聚物生产出具有更高分子量和结晶度的PLA。
