Hybrids of Silica/Poly(caprolactone coglycidoxypropyl trimethoxysilane) as Biomaterials

Bioactive glasses stimulate bone regeneration but are brittle. Biomaterials are needed that share load with bone, promote bone regeneration, and biodegrade at controlled rates. Sol–gel hybrids can achieve this through their intimate inorganic and organic conetworks, depending on the organic polymer used. Polycaprolactone degrades slowly but lacks functional groups for the critical step of covalent coupling to the silica conetwork. Here, we synthesized a novel copolymer of caprolactone and glycidoxypropyl trimethoxysilane through one-pot ring opening polymerization (ROP). Hybrids with different organic content were fabricated using such a copolymer for the first time. The copolymer can directly bond to a silica network due its trimethoxysilane groups, which can hydrolyze, leaving silanol groups that undergo polycondensation with silanol groups of the silica network. The number of repeating units of caprolactone and glycidoxypropyl trimethoxysilane functional groups were controlled via ROP. The mechanical p...