Supercritical CO2 Impregnation of PCL and PCL-Composites

JASNA IVANOVIC, ; ALEJANDRA FANOVICH; ARNE PIETSCH ; PHILIP JAEGER

Essen

Congreso; 15th European Meeting on Supercritical Fluids (EMSF); 2016

International Society for Advancement of Supercritical Fluids (ISASF)

Development of batch and semi-continuous processes for creation and impregnation of polycaprolactone (PCL) and PCL-hydroxyapatite (PCL-HA) scaffolds using supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) was presented. The effect of scCO2 sorption on swelling, scaffold morphology and thermal behaviour of PCL and PCL-HA composites was considered for design and optimization of impregnation processes. Influence of pressure, amount of HA within the composite and the procedure for powder preparation on sorption was analysed. Natural substances with strong antibacterial activity such as thymol and usnea extract were used as impregnating substances. For both processes, moderately high pressure (17 MPa) and temperatures (35-40 °C), and low percentages of HA (10%) were favourable for creation of the microcellular PCL or PCL-HA scaffolds with satisfying impregnation yields of thymol (13%) and usnea extract (4%).