If you use calcium hydroxide, then you can neutralize with sulphuric or phosphoric acid, filter out the calcium salts, and have a fairly pure solution
of lactic acid. If you acidify with a different acid (such as hydrochloric), then regardless of which base you use, you'll want to have an excess of
base so that you can distill the lactic acid (ew!) without any excess acid coming over.
Just hypothesizing here, but you might also be able to hydrolyze the polymer by refluxing it in aqueous acid for a while, adding just enough
bicarbonate to neutralize the acid that you've added, and then distilling. |