Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
10160059 | Acta Biomaterialia | 2012 | 11 Pages |
Abstract
The porous structure of a scaffold determines the ability of bone to regenerate within this environment. In situations where the scaffold is required to provide mechanical function, balance must be achieved between optimizing porosity and maximizing mechanical strength. Supercritical CO2 foaming can produce open-cell, interconnected structures in a low-temperature, solvent-free process. In this work, we report on foams of varying structural and mechanical properties fabricated from different molecular weights of poly(dl-lactic acid) PdlLA (57, 25 and 15Â kDa) and by varying the depressurization rate. Rapid depressurization rates produced scaffolds with homogeneous pore distributions and some closed pores. Decreasing the depressurization rate produced scaffolds with wider pore size distributions and larger, more interconnected pores. In compressive testing, scaffolds produced from 57Â kDa PdlLA exhibited typical stress-strain curves for elastomeric open-cell foams whereas scaffolds fabricated from 25 and 15Â kDa PdlLA behaved as brittle foams. The structural and mechanical properties of scaffolds produced from 57Â kDa PdlLA by scCO2 ensure that these scaffolds are suitable for potential applications in bone tissue engineering.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Bioengineering
Authors
Lisa J. White, Victoria Hutter, Hongyun Tai, Steven M. Howdle, Kevin M. Shakesheff,