Study of properties of biodegradable polymeric materials based on polyester Doctoral Thesis Summary

Petr Stloukal

The present state of art of biodegradable polymeric materials, especially with emphasis on the biodegradable polyesters, is widely described in the theoretical part. Considerable attention is devoted to the detailed analysis of the mechanisms of biodegradation process consisting of several phases, where depolymerization is the most frequently the rate limiting step in the whole process. During this process macromolecular chains are cleaved into smaller fragments, which can be subsequently mineralized by microorganisms.