Degradation of a fullerene end-capped polycaprolactone by lipase AK

Using titrimetric method,enzymatic behavior of lipase AK against fullerene end-capped polycaprolactone(C60-PCL) was studied for the first time,compared with polycaprolactone(PCL).The results showed that degradation of both C60-PCL and PCL by lipase followed Mechaelis-Menten equation,with the degradation parameters of PCL and C60-PCL were 0.75 mg mL-1 and 0.16 mg mL-1 for Km,and 0.90 mL h-1 and 0.43 mL h-1 for Vmax,respectively.C60-PCL had a slower degradation rate than PCL under the same conditions.These data indicated that the introduction of fullerene enabled PCL hard to be degraded by lipase.