Lipase-catalyzed ring-opening copolymerization of ω-pentadecalactone and δ-valerolactone by reactive extrusion

This work demonstrates the synthesis of poly(omega-pentadecalactone-co-delta-valeroLactone) with high molecular weight (M-n = 71.3 kDa) and low polydispersity (D = 1.67) within 6 hours by reactive extrusion (REX) using a lipase catalyst (Novozyme-435). The catalyst under REX conditions effectively promoted transesterification with increased reaction time providing access to copolymers with blocky and nearly random sequence distributions.