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ABSTRACT
Polymer curing is a complex process that significantly delineate the final properties of the synthetized material. In this work, the photo-induced crosslinking reaction of synthetic “bio-inspired” copolymers based on thymine and ionic groups was studied by gel permeation chromatography and UV absorption spectroscopy. A mathematical model for the curing process based on statistical techniques and coupled to the kinetics of crosslinking was developed. The model allows to predict both, the evolution of the crosslinking degree as a function of curing time and the gel times as a function of the molecular structure of the copolymer and the curing conditions. The theoretical values showed a very good agreement with the UV–Vis and GPC spectroscopy experimental results for all the copolymers studied. A better knowledge of the curing kinetics of thymine-based biopolymers will enable to develop materials with pre-specified properties and to improve their applications.
GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Acknowledgements
SAB is member of the Research Council of CONICET, Argentina.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
N. Chen graduated from Simmons College with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry in 2015. After graduation, she worked at Jordi Labs in Mansfield, MA, for three years and gained experience in small molecules and polymer analysis. She is currently attending Northeastern University for her Master's degree in analytical chemistry.
Professor N. Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea, and her family immigrated to the U.S. when she was in middle school. She pursued chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. With BS in chemistry, she worked in the pharmaceutical industry (Merck & Wyeth-Ayerst) for four years where she fell in love with synthetic organic chemistry. She attended Brown to get a Ph.D. in organic synthesis where she studied synthesis of vitamin D metabolites and analogs. After a year of postdoctoral work at MIT in organometallic chemistry, she came to Simmons. She has been teaching organic chemistry to science majors and prehealth majors since 1994. She worked on an interesting class of compounds originally isolated from sharks called squalamines which has clinical potential in controlling tumors as an anti-angiogenic agent. More recently, she has devoted her research on synthesis and characterization of green polymers.
Dr S. A. Bortolato was born in Rosario, Argentina. He obtained his BS and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the School of Biochemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, National University of Rosario. He is member of the National Research Council of Argentina (CONICET) at the Rosario Institute of Chemistry (IQUIR), Department of Analytical Chemistry, University of Rosario. He has published about 30 scientific papers in international journals and several books and book chapters.
Dr D. M. Martino was born in Reconquista, Argentina. She earned her BS/MS and Ph.D. in Physics at the National University of Rosario, Argentina, and performed her postdoc at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She was appointed as Adjunct Prof. at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and then as a research scientist at the Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory at MIT. For 15 plus years Dr Martino has been a Professor at the Universidad Nacional del Litoral and a member of the National Research Council of Argentina (CONICET). Her rich background in research and academia includes more than 50 scientific papers in international journals and book chapters. In January 2015, Dr Martino joined the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry.