Polybutylene succinate

Polybutylene succinate (PBS) (sometimes written polytetramethylene succinate) is a thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family. PBS is a biodegradable aliphatic polyester with properties that are comparable to polypropylene. Polybutylene succinate (PBS) (sometimes written polytetramethylene succinate) is a thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family. PBS is a biodegradable aliphatic polyester with properties that are comparable to polypropylene. It may also be referred to by the brand names Bionolle (Showa Denko) or GsPLA (Mitsubishi Chemical).PBS consists of polymerized units of butylene succinate, with repeating C8H12O4 units. The synthesis of succinic acid based polyesters was first performed in 1863. In that time the Portuguese professor Agostinho Vicente Lourenço described in his 'Recherche sur les composés polyatomiques' (Research on polyatomic compounds), the reaction between succinic acid and ethylene glycol to form what he named 'succino-ethylenic acid'. He noticed that this acid was losing water when it was heated at high temperatures (300 °C) and that a crystalline mass when obtained after cooling. Unfortunately, Lourenço did not study much the structure of the material he obtained. Later Davidoff (1886), and then Voländer (1894) prepared this same material by using different methods.This early work was pursued in the 1930s by Wallace Hume Carothers (E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co.), with a more systematic study of succinic acid based polyesters. In that time the purpose of such study was to find a synthetic alternative to natural silk fiber. Carothers, by eliminating water on a continuous distillation process, obtained polymers with molar masses significantly higher than what was previously synthesized. Nevertheless, the properties of the final products did not show the expected qualities. Thus Carothers put more attention on polyamides and invented with his colleague Julian Hill Nylon 6,6. Later Flory (1946) proposed an improved synthesis of aliphatic polyesters with diacid chloride.