07169 IUPAC Gold Book - biodegradable polymer 10.1351/goldbook.BT07169 BT07169 current 1 Polymer susceptible to degradation by biological activity, with the degradation accompanied by a lowering of its molar mass. See also Note 2 to polymer degradation. In the case of a polymer, its biodegradation proceeds not only by catalytic activity of enzymes, but also by a wide variety of biological activities. biodegradation https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/B00656 enzymes https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/E02159 polymer degradation https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/PT07144 PAC, 2004, 76, 889. 'Definitions of terms relating to reactions of polymers and to functional polymeric materials (IUPAC Recommendations 2003)' on page 898 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac200476040889) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/BT07169/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/BT07169/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/BT07169/plain Citation: 'biodegradable polymer' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.BT07169 The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. 2026-08-05T00:41:06+00:00