Influence of in vitro hydrolytic degradation on the morphology and crystallization behavior of poly(p-dioxanone).

We have studied the hydrolytic degradation of high molecular weight poly(p-dioxanone), PPDX, sutures. The samples were degraded either in distilled water or in a phosphate buffer at 37 degrees C, and the starting viscosity-average molecular weight was 130 kg/mol. The hydrolytic degradation of PPDX occurs in an approximate two stage process where the amorphous regions of the sample are attacked faster than the crystalline regions of the sample. The changes experienced by the samples as degradation proceeded were successfully monitored by viscosimetry, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), weight loss, pH changes, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Polarized optical microscopy (POM) observations performed on PPDX films revealed that PPDX crystallizes in spherulites whose detailed morphology depends on the supercooling employed during isothermal crystallization. Changes in the spherulitic morphology as molecular weight is reduced are only pronounced when the molecular weight is equal or lower than 8 kg/mol. The dependence of lamellar thickness as a function of isothermal crystallization temperature was examined by atomic force microscopy (AFM) in thin films of PPDX together with melting point data obtained by DSC. Through the use of the Thomson-Gibbs equation, we obtained a value of 166 erg/cm2 for the fold surface free energy of PPDX. This value is in the same range as those obtained previously for similar linear polyesters. The lamellar thickness, as well as the melting point, was found to have a small decreasing dependence with the molecular weight of the samples.