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    Degradable polyurethane for marine anti-biofouling

    Year: 2013

    Journal: J. Mater. Chem. B, 2013,1, 3099-3106, 20130630

    Authors: Chunfeng Ma a, Liguo Xu a, Wentao Xu a, Guangzhao Zhang a b

    Last authors: Guangzhao Zhang

    Organizations: a Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, P. R. China E-mail: gzzhang@ustc.edu.cn b Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale, Department of Chemical Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, P. R. China

    Country: china

    Degradable polyurethane (PU) with copolyester oligomer consisting of ε-caprolactone (CL) and glycolide (GA) as the soft segments has been prepared by a combination of ring-opening polymerization and condensation reaction. Enzymatic and hydrolytic degradation experiments demonstrate that the PU can degrade in seawater. Such a polyurethane exhibit a more rapid degradation in comparison with that with poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) soft segments because the introduction of GA can reduce the crystallinity, as revealed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and polarizing optical microscope (POM). Marine field tests show that the degradable polyurethane has good antifouling ability due to its self-renewal property. Besides, such polyurethane can serve as a carrier and controlled release system for an antifoulant, and the incorporation of an antifoulant in the polyurethane can significantly improve the antifouling ability and duration.