Thermal and thermomechanical behaviour of polycaprolactone and starch/polycaprolactone blends for biomedical applications

Polycaprolactone (PCL) and starch/PCL blends (SPCL) are shown to have the potential to be used in a range of biomedical applications and can be processed with conventional melting-based procedures. In this paper, the thermal and thermomechanical analyses of PCL and SPCL were performed, using DSC, optical microscopy and DMA. Starch effectively increased the non-isothermal crystallisation rate of PCL. Non-isothermal crystallisation kinetics was analyzed using Ozawa model, and a method, which combines the theories of Avrami and Ozawa. Starch effectively reinforced PCL and enhanced its damping properties, which indicated that SPCL could be more suitable than PCL in some biomedical applications, as it might help in the dissipation of the mechanical energy generated by the patient movements.