Glutathione-Mediated Biodegradable Polyurethanes Derived from l-Arabinitol

The synthesis, characterization, and some properties of new glutathione-mediated biodegradable sugar-based copolyurethanes are described. These copolyurethanes were obtained by polyaddition reaction of mixtures of 2,2′-dithiodiethanol (DiT) and 2,3,4-tri-O-benzyl-l-arabinitol (ArBn) or 2,3,4-tri-O-methyl-l-arabinitol (ArMe) to 1,6-hexamethylene diisocyanate (HMDI). The copolymer compositions were studied by elemental microanalyses and 1H NMR, revealing that the content of the copolymer units is in all cases very similar to that of their corresponding feed. The PU(DiT-HMDI) homopolymer exhibited a high crystallinity, but the introduction of the arabinitol-based diols led to a reduction in the crystallinity of the copolymers. In their TG curves, the copolymers exhibited a mixed trend of the related homopolymers, and all of them were thermally stable, with degradation temperatures above 220 °C. The degradation properties of the macromolecules under physiological conditions in the presence of glutathione were tested. All the copolyurethanes proved to be biodegradable under the experimental conditions (pH = 7.02 and 37 °C). The degradation pattern of the copolymers depended not only on the dithiodiethanol (DiT) reactive units ratio in the polymer backbone, but also on the crystallinity of the macromolecule.