Production of Poly(lactic acid)/Organoclay Nanocomposite Scaffolds by Microcompounding and Polymer/Particle Leaching

Organoclay reinforced poly(lactic acid) (PLA)/poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) blend based porous nanocomposite scaffolds are prepared by microcompounding/injection molding and subsequent polymer (PVA)/particle (NaCl) leaching method. The objective of the study is to investigate the effect of clay content on the properties of scaffolds for tissue engineering. It is revealed from X-ray diffraction and TEM studies that incorporation of PVA to PLA matrix as a polymeric porogen enhance the state of dispersion of clay particles resulting in an exfoliated structure. The porosities of all the scaffolds are higher than 70% and the pores are well-interconnected as observed by SEM. The addition of clay to the scaffolds improves the compressive modulus. Differential scanning calorimeter analysis shows that T-g of neat-PLA is shifted to lower values when it is compounded with PVA. As a result, it is demonstrated that the method applied in this work can be a good candidate for production of polymeric scaffolds for tissue engineering applications. POLYM. COMPOS., 31:674-6683, 2010. (C) 2009 Society of Plastics Engineers