Study on properties of amphiphilic biodegradable copolymer the hydroxypropyl cellulose-graft-polycaprolactone

The properties of the amphiphilic hydroxypropyl cellulose graft polycaprolactone (HPC-g-PCL) copolymers were investigated. The results of WAXD and DSC measurements show that grafting of PCL onto HPC backbone gives rise to a very effective decrease in the crystallinity, and consequently the T_m and T_c of the graft copolymers also decrease, comparison of that of PCL homopolymer. It is also found that the lower the D_p, the lower the X_c, T_m and T_c. The hydrolysis degradation of the graft copolymers was investigated in buffer in vitro and compared with that PCL homopolymer. The degradation rates of the graft copolymers were significantly larger than that of PCL, due to decreases in the crystallinity of the PCL segment by the introduction of a hydrophilic HPC unit and its branched structure.