Lactones are cyclic esters that form polyhydroxyalkanoates when the ring is opened by hydrolysis. Both the former and the latter have different important properties and uses (e.g. biodegradable plastics, applicability in biomedicine…). Such molecules can be useful unmodified, but they can be subjected to a number of different modifications that change the physicochemical properties of polyhydroxyalkanoates and thus their usefulness. In my dissertation, I first focused on possible modifications of these polymers, and then in the next section I described the actual reactions of lactones with silane derivatives. These reactions are particularly important in terms of the various silane coatings that also have the properties of the lactone bound to it, whether the lactone is modified or not. Since this area is still quite unexplored and there is not much data for these reactions, I also did some experimental work. In the experimental work, I performed different reactions of two different lactones (γ-valerolactone and ε-caprolactone) with 3-aminopropyltrimethoxy silane in different solvents and found that the only suitable solvent for such reactions was alcohol (in our case ethanol).
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