Hello Cuong,

thank you for sharing this interesting technical question with the RG community. Poly(butylene-adipate-co-terephthalate) (= PBAT) is an important biodegradable polymer. Well-established industrial polyester forming technology is used to manufacture PBAT by a polycondensation reaction between butanediol (BDO), adipic acid (AA) and terephthalic acid (PTA). Common catalysts for this polycondensation reaction include certain organometallic compounds of titanium, zinc, or tin. For an instructive overview about this topic please have a look at the following review article:

An overview on synthesis, properties and applications of poly(butylene-adipate-co-terephthalate)–PBAT

Fortunately this review article has been posted by the authors as public full text on RG. Thus you can freely download it as pdf file.

Good luck with your research!

Dear Prof Frank T. Edelmann ,

Thank you for your information. The article you suggested is really interesting. Sadly, such review article dedicated to PBAT is quiet rare in the literature, compared to other biodegradable polymers such as PLA or PCL. In the meantime, I am also looking for the US patent related to PBAT processing.

Best regards,

Cuong

Dear Cuong,

many thanks for your kind response and explanation. You are absolutely right in that the patent literature also holds some potentially useful information about synthesis, processing and chacterization of PBAT. Please find attached two typical examples.

I just came across another interesting article related to this topic which has been published Open Access:

Improvement of PBAT Processability and Mechanical Performance by Blending with Pine Resin Derivatives for Injection Moulding Rigid Packaging with Enhanced Hydrophobicity

(also attached as pdf file)

I'm sure that the following more general publication will also be of interest to you:

Technology Trends in Biodegradable Polymers: Evidence from Patent Analysis

Article Technology Trends in Biodegradable Polymers – Evidence from ...

Unfortunately this paper has not yet been posted as public full text. However, the senior researcher of this study has an RG profile (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jens-Leker). Thus you can easily request the full text of the paper directly from this author via RG.

Good luck with your work and best wishes, Frank Edelmann

Thank you again, Prof. Frank T. Edelmann for giving me many useful documents. After several days looking into the literature, I have another question related to the catalyst used for the PBAT:

Titanium-based catalysts, except for their high activity, can cause many problems for the final products (PBAT and polyesters in general) such as discoloration or instability. However, I noticed that many studies, in both academia and industry, rely on these titanium-based materials. I have been wondering countlessly about the reason why. If possible, could you please give me some of your opinions about this matter?

Best regards,

Cuong

Dear Cuong,

this is a very interesting point. I'm not an expert in polymer chemistry enougth to provide you with a definitive answer what the reasons for discoloration or instability in the case of titanium catalysts are. The good thing about titanium catalysts is that they are readily available in large quantities and not so expensive. However, what you describe seems to be a common phenomenon. In the article cited below the authors report that the titanium catalysts used for making poly(butylene-succinate) (PBS) were the most active. However, the polymers made using Ti catalysts were most prone to significant hydrolytic degradation among all PBS samples were. I assume that this depends on what is often called the high oxophilicity of titanium which results in a high affinity to water and oxygen-containing ligands. However, this is just an assumption from my side. For more information, please have a look at the following potentially useful article in which the activity of dfferent metal catalysts has been compared:

Synthesis and Properties of Poly(butylene succinate): Efficiency of Different Transesterification Catalysts

Article Synthesis and Properties of Poly(butylene succinate): Effici...

This paper is freely available as public full text on RG.

Good luck with your work!

Dear Prof. Frank T. Edelmann ,

Thank you very much for your instructive answer as always. I have learnt a lot from all the articles you suggested to me. I will look more into the literature and I hope that more interesting discussions will follow.

Best regards,

Cuong