Author(s)

Anna Bergstrand, Helene Andersson, Johanna Cramby, Kristin Sott, Anette Larsson

Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, G?teborg, Sweden.
Structure and Material Design, The Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology, G?teborg, Sweden.

Porous resorbable implants are of great interest since they may deliver bioactives or drugs, facilitate the transport of body fluids or degradation products and provide a favorable environment for cell attachment and growth. In this work we report on a method using concentrated emulsions to template interconnected solid foam materials and to produce highly porous poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) materials. Porous PHB films were cast made from water-in-oil template emulsions including Span 80 and lithium sulphate. The films were characterized by SEM-EDX and DMA. The water uptake of the films was recorded in order to determine the fraction water available pores. The results show that the addition of lithium sulphate allows a fine tuning of the film morphology with respect to porosity and interconnected porous structure. The film porosity was determined to 51% ± 3%, 52% ± 3% and 45% ± 3% for the films made with 0%, 2.9% and 14.3% lithium sulphate in the template emulsion, respectively. The fraction water available pores was significantly lower, 11% ±3%, 38% ±12% and 48% ± 7% for films with 0%, 2.9% and 14.3% litium sulphate respectively. Differences in fraction water available pores and total porosity for the films reflects the film morphology and differences in pore interconnection.

Biodegradable; Emulsion Templating; Porous; Implant

A. Bergstrand, H. Andersson, J. Cramby, K. Sott and A. Larsson, "Preparation of Porous Poly(3-Hydroxybutyrate) Films by Water-Droplet Templating," Journal of Biomaterials and Nanobiotechnology, Vol. 3 No. 4, 2012, pp. 431-439. doi: 10.4236/jbnb.2012.34043.