Pressure enhanced self catalytic decomposition of alginic acid in high temperature high pressure water

海藻酸盐是一种生物相容聚合物，在药物输送系统的容器等医疗用途中具有很高的潜力。然而，对于更特殊的用途，需要将分子量控制在~10^3g/mol左右。在本工作中，我们研究了海藻酸盐在高温高压水中的分解。在所考察的实验条件下，与传统分解方法需要添加酸碱催化剂和较长的反应时间(小时)相比，在较短的反应时间(~lt；1s)内即可将海藻酸盐分解到分子量在10~3g/mol以上。此外，我们还发现反应条件依赖于产物海藻酸盐的单体含量。

Alginate is a biocompatible polymer that has high potential in medical uses such as vessels for drug delivery systems. However, for more specialized uses, the molecular weight needs to be controlled to around ~ 10^3 g/mol. In this work, we investigated the decomposition of alginate in high temperature high pressure water. Under the experimental conditions examined, the decomposition of alginate can be achieved to molecular weights above ~ 10^3g/mol in short reaction times (<1s)without any addition of catalysts, compared to conventional decomposition methods which require addition of acid or base catalyst and long reaction times (hours). Also, we found reaction condition dependencies in the monomer content of the product alginate.