Montes Antonio, Valor Diego, Delgado Laura, Pereyra Clara, Martínez de la Ossa Enrique
Department of Chemical Engineering and Food Technology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Cadiz, International Excellence Agrifood Campus (CeiA3), Campus Universitario Río San Pedro, 11510 Puerto Real, Cadiz, Spain.
Polymers (Basel). 2022 Jan 26;14(3):488. doi: 10.3390/polym14030488.
Conjugated polymers are biomaterials with high conductivity characteristics because of their molecular composition. However, they are too rigid and brittle for medical applications and therefore need to be combined with non-conductive polymers to overcome or lessen these drawbacks. This work has, consequently, focused on the development of three-dimensional scaffolds where conductive and non-conductive polymers have been produced by combining polycaprolactone (PCL) and polyaniline (PANI) by means of supercritical CO foaming techniques. To evaluate their therapeutic potential as implants, a series of experiments have been designed to determine the most influential variables in the production of the three-dimensional scaffolds, including temperature, pressure, polymer ratio and depressurization rate. Internal morphology, porosity, expansion factor, PANI loads, biodegradability, mechanical and electrical properties have been taken as the response variables. The results revealed a strong influence from all the input variables studied, as well as from their interactions. The best operating conditions tested were 70 °C, 100 bar, a ratio of 5:1 (PCL:PANI), a depressurization rate of 20 bar/min and a contact time of 1 h.
共轭聚合物由于其分子组成而成为具有高导电特性的生物材料。然而，它们对于医学应用来说过于刚性和脆性，因此需要与非导电聚合物结合以克服或减轻这些缺点。因此，这项工作专注于三维支架的开发，其中通过超临界CO₂发泡技术将聚己内酯（PCL）和聚苯胺（PANI）结合来制备导电和非导电聚合物。为了评估它们作为植入物的治疗潜力，设计了一系列实验来确定三维支架生产中最具影响力的变量，包括温度、压力、聚合物比例和降压速率。内部形态、孔隙率、膨胀因子、PANI负载量、生物降解性、机械和电学性能已被用作响应变量。结果表明，所研究的所有输入变量及其相互作用都有很大影响。测试的最佳操作条件为70℃、100巴、5:1的比例（PCL:PANI）、20巴/分钟的降压速率和1小时的接触时间。
