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A parametric study on the processing parameters and properties of a porous poly(DL‐lactide‐ co ‐glycolide) acid 85/15 bioscaffolds
Author(s) -
Perron Josee K.,
Naguib Hani E.,
Daka Joseph,
Chawla Attar
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
polymer engineering and science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.503
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1548-2634
pISSN - 0032-3888
DOI - 10.1002/pen.21443
Subject(s) - materials science , porosity , plga , scaffold , compressive strength , interconnectivity , composite material , lactide , chemical engineering , polymer , saturation (graph theory) , biomedical engineering , copolymer , nanotechnology , nanoparticle , medicine , engineering , artificial intelligence , computer science , mathematics , combinatorics
Abstract This study presents a comprehensive parametric study on the effects of processing parameters on the poly(DL‐lactide‐ co ‐glycolide) acid (PLGA) 85/15 scaffold's physical properties. Porous PLGA 85/15 scaffolds were prepared using a gas foaming/salt leaching technique. The processing parameters under examination for the gas foaming/salt leaching method included: gas saturation pressure (SP), gas saturation time, and NaCl/polymer mass ratio (NaCl/PMR). The physical properties considered in this study were the scaffold density, the scaffold porosity, and the average pore size of the scaffold. Young's moduli in compression, as well as the pore density (PD) inside the scaffold, were also studied. The results demonstrated optimum correlations of processing parameters are required to produce a scaffold with a high level of interconnectivity. In general, all scaffolds yielded by this experiment exhibited a porosity more than 90%, a relative density ranging from 0.0534 to 0.149 g/cm 3 , a PD ranging from 1.51 × 10 6 to 6.72 × 10 6 pores/cm 3 , and a compressive modulus ranging from 0.07 to 0.84 MPa. It was determined that the NaCl/PMR was the parameter that had the most significant effect on the physical properties of the scaffold. The average pore size was affected slightly by the SP only, and it was observed that the pore size was equivalent to the size of the NaCl particles used to make the scaffold. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2009. © 2009 Society of Plastics Engineers