Morphological changes resulting from the hydrolytic degradation of stereocopolymers derived from L- and DL-lactides

It is found that hydrolytic degradation of large sized devices made of poly(lactic acid) stereocopolymers can lead to morphology changes with partial crystallization of degradation byproducts or residues, provided rather long poly(L-LA) (or poly(D-LA) or both) sequences are initially present in polymer chains. In poly(L-LA) or poly(D-LA)-rich polymers, cristallization of stereoregular sequences prevails either for the whole mass or only for the surface part of the hollow structure