Development and Characterization of Natural Rubber Latex and Polylactic Acid Membranes for Biomedical Application

Natural rubber latex from the Hevea brasiliensis has been of great importance in areas such as medicine and bioengineering, due to its angiogenic and wound healing activity. However, the biodegradability of natural rubber latex is not significant when compared to other polymers used for the development of materials with biomedical applications, which is important to avoid medical intervention to remove them. Thus, the aim of this work was to improve the biodegradability and subsequent bioabsorption of natural rubber latex membranes associating them with the polylactic acid, a biodegradable, bioreabsorbable and biocompatible polymer, besides being the most studied in biomedical, pharmaceutical and environmental fields. The membranes were prepared with different mass proportions of the polymers with dichloromethane as solvent. The material were submitted to mechanical test, infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, water vapor transmission, swelling, in vitro degradation and hemolysis assay. The different polymer proportions influenced the membrane properties. The infrared spectroscopy indicating that no new chemical interactions were formed, and the scanning electron microscopy showed a polymer network formed in membranes with the highest natural rubber latex mass proportion. With the increase of polylactic acid in the membranes, there was an improvement in the degradation of the material of up to 130% and no hemolytic effect was observed, making it interesting for biomedical application.