Journal
JOURNAL OF SUPERCRITICAL FLUIDS
Volume 77, Issue -, Pages 110-116Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.supflu.2013.02.020
Keywords
Ammonium bicarbonate; Phase inversion; Scaffolds; Supercritical fluids; Tissue engineering
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [31170939, 81171471, 51103049]
- National Science Foundation of Fujian Province [2010J05027, 2011501223]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Supercritical fluid technology has been utilized in the development of tissue engineering scaffolds. However, it results in some problems, such as the poorly interconnected pores and the inability to load growth factor due to the salt leaching process for removal of the solid porogen. In this study, ammonium bicarbonate (AB) particles were used as a porogen and mixed uniformly with poly-L-lactide (PLLA) solution. Supercritical CO2 was used to immerse and flush through the resulting compound to allow the occurrence of phase inversion, subsequently generating a nanofibrous network. As the decomposition temperature of AB crystals is 36 degrees C, the temperature of the CO2 was increased to 40 degrees C to decompose the porogen, and the decomposition products were removed by washing with CO2. The resulting PLLA scaffolds possessed both large pores and micro pores with a controllable pore size, a high porosity (>95%), an interconnected structure, a nanofibrous network, good mechanical properties (compressive strength up to 100 kPa), and a very low organic solvent residue (12 ppm). The results of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements indicated that the molecular structure and physical state of PLLA were not changed after supercritical processing. The results reveal that the application of AB particles as a porogen in the supercritical phase inversion process is feasible to produce tissue engineering scaffolds with a high-performance. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available