A novel method to control hydrolytic degradation of nanocomposite biocompatible materials via imparting superhydrophobicity

Acceleration of hydrolytic degradation of biomedical materials is not always desirable. For instance, terpolymers based on L-lactide, glycolide and trimethylene carbonate exhibit very fast hydrolytic degradation due to their amorphous structure, hydrophilicity, and high water absorption capability. Therefore, an attempt was made in the current study to impede the hydrolytic degradation for these materials through imparting superhydrophobicity to their surfaces. The used terpolymer has been shown to have promising potential applications as bio-absorbable surgical sutures and other biomedical materials, and thus, its applicability could be further extended upon impeding its hydrolytic degradation. Moreover, a novel method including combined use of non-solvent and nanoparticles was utilized to achieve superhydrophobicity. Very diverse wettability results were obtained which were attributed to the obtained various morphologies according to scanning electron microscopy results. More importantly, a unique hierarchical morphology was found to be responsible for the observed water repellent behavior. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results revealed co-existence of nanosilica particles and terpolymer chains on the surface's top layer. Finally, it was found that the superhydrophobic sample exhibited a significantly impeded hydrolytic degradation as compared with the hydrophilic pure terpolymer which was attributed to the formation of air pockets on the surface's top layer. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.