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Solid-State Supercritical CO2 Foaming of PCL/PLGA Blends: Cell Opening and Compression Behavior

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Abstract

The foaming behavior of poly(ε-caprolactone)/poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PCL/PLGA) blends and the effect of composition on porous structure, compression property and biocompatibility are investigated. Various portions of PLGA are added into matrix PCL at dispersion phase by melt blending. A solid-state batch foaming process is used based on supercritical CO2 as a physical blowing agent. With the PLGA content increased from 5 to 30 wt%, storage modulus and complex viscosity of PCL from rheological tests are improved significantly. Foaming tests reveal that incorporation of PLGA facilitates foaming of PCL by increasing viscosity. With an increase of PLGA content, pore size clearly decreases, and the open–cell content first increases and then decreases slightly. The maximum open-cell content value is greater than 86% for foamed 10 wt% PLGA. Moreover, uni-axial compression testing shows that dispersed PLGA improves the compressive stress distinctly. Cell structure evolutions at linear elasticity, plateau, and densification stages in compression tests are also investigated. Cell viability results demonstrate that there are more and denser live HUVECs detected on scaffold with increase of PLGA content. Compression strength of PCL/PLGA scaffold has more contributions to cell viability than that of porosity and open-cell content.

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Acknowledgements

This work is sponsored by the International Technological Cooperation Project (2015DFA30550), Scientific and technological research project of Henan Province (202102210028, 172102210489), Key scientific research project plan of Henan high education institutions (17A430032) and College students' innovation and entrepreneurship projects of Zhengzhou University (2019cxcy661). Zhengzhou University Doctoral Talent Program for corresponding author is also appreciated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanics & Engineering Science, National Center for International Joint Research of Micro-Nano Molding Technology, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450001, Henan, China

    Haiyang Guo, Jing Jiang, Zihui Li, Jianhua Hou, Xiaofeng Wang & Qian Li

  2. School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450001, Henan, China

    Jing Jiang & Zhangyong Jin

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  1. Haiyang Guo
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Correspondence to Jing Jiang or Jianhua Hou.

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Guo, H., Jiang, J., Li, Z. et al. Solid-State Supercritical CO2 Foaming of PCL/PLGA Blends: Cell Opening and Compression Behavior. J Polym Environ 28, 1880–1892 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10924-020-01732-9

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