Enzymatic monolayer degradation study of multiblock copolymers consisting of poly(ε-caprolactone) and poly(p-dioxanone) blocks

Multiblock copolymers consisting of poly-ε-caprolactone-(PCL) segments and poly-p-dioxanone-(PPDO) segments were analysed with respect to their hydrolytic degradation behaviour using the Langmuir monolayer degradation technique. Degradation was studied both on phosphate buffer subphase and on aqueous subphases containing phosphate buffered pseudomonas lipase. The influence of systematic structure variation of the block copolymers on the monolayer degradation kinetics is studied. A model explaining the unexpected linear degradation behaviour of the monolayers is developed.