Investigation on the thermo-mechanical properties and thermal stability of polylactic acid tissue engineering scaffold material

Thermogravimetric analysis and dynamic mechanical analysis were combined with scanning electron microscopy to analyze the thermo-mechanical properties and thermal stability of polylactic acid (PLA) foams fabricated using a solvent-free solid-state gas foaming method. The dependence of decomposition time and the lifetime on the PLA cell size was evaluated based on the thermal decomposition kinetic analyses. The results show that PLA specimens with larger cell sizes can be made at lower saturation gas pressures, which will ensure that the fabricated PLA foams have a shorter decomposition time, better flexibility, and are more satisfactory for medical requirements of tissue engineering scaffold (TES) material. The current work may help to optimize the PLA foaming parameters and precisely design PLA foams with different decomposition times according to specific TES requirements of different organ structures.