D-Pantothenol is a hygroscopic, organic molecule that's the alcohol analog of pantothenic acid. It is commonly used as a moisturizer in shampoo and other hair products. But it is also used as a treatment of mild burns because of its medicinal properties such as reducing inflammation of the skin and accelerated healing of epidermal wounds. Knowing this, the goal is to engineer a polymer that can function as a wound dressing to accelerate healing. But first, the kinetics of pantothenol must be studied because there are 3 possible sites of esterification; two terminal hydroxyl groups and one at the stereocenter. Our focus is to polymerize linearly across the two terminal hydroxyl groups to minimize cross-linking between polymer chains, branching, and to leave a free functional group along the polyester backbone. For the kinetics study, ethyl octanoate was used for esterification of the hydroxyl groups. By using H1NMR, It was observed that at short period of times the terminal hydroxyl groups were more reactive than the hydroxyl group at the stereocenter. Then for the polycondensations, diethyl adipate and diethyl azelate were used, which yielded polyesters with 37,160 and 83,260 g/mol, respectively, after 24 hrs of reaction. H1NMR spectrum for poly(pantothenol adipate) revealed that the secondary hydroxyl group at the stereocenter is still less reactive after 24 hrs.

Esterification and polymerization kinetic studies of   Pantothenol by enzymatic catalysis for biomedical applications

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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