Motloung Mpho Phillip, Mofokeng Tladi Gideon, Ray Suprakas Sinha
Centre for Nanostructures and Advanced Materials, DSI-CSIR Nanotechnology Innovation Centre, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Pretoria 0001, South Africa.
Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg 2028, South Africa.
Materials (Basel). 2021 Dec 24;15(1):104. doi: 10.3390/ma15010104.
Poly (ε-caprolactone) (PCL)/hydroxyapatite (HAP) composites represent a novel material with desired properties for various applications. In this work, PCL/HAP composites at low loadings were developed through melt-extrusion processing. The effects of HAP loading on viscoelastic, thermal, structural, and mechanical properties of PCL were examined. The morphological analysis revealed better dispersion of HAP at low loadings, while aggregation was noticed at high concentrations. The complex viscosity of the prepared composites increased with increasing concentration of HAP. In addition, a significant decrease in crystallinity was observed upon increase in HAP loading. However, the elongation at break increased with increasing the concentration of HAP, probably due to a decrease in crystallinity. The onset thermal degradation temperature of PCL was enhanced at low concentrations of HAP, whereas a decrease was observed at high loading. Overall, different degrees of HAP dispersion resulted into specific property improvement.
聚（ε-己内酯）（PCL）/羟基磷灰石（HAP）复合材料是一种具有多种应用所需性能的新型材料。在这项工作中，通过熔融挤出工艺制备了低负载量的PCL/HAP复合材料。研究了HAP负载量对PCL的粘弹性、热性能、结构和力学性能的影响。形态分析表明，低负载量下HAP的分散性较好，而高浓度时则出现团聚现象。制备的复合材料的复数粘度随HAP浓度的增加而增加。此外，随着HAP负载量的增加，结晶度显著降低。然而，断裂伸长率随HAP浓度的增加而增加，这可能是由于结晶度降低所致。在低浓度HAP下，PCL的起始热降解温度升高，而在高负载量下则降低。总体而言，不同程度的HAP分散导致了特定性能的改善。
