PHBV tissue engineering scaffolds fabricated via emulsion freezing / freeze-drying : effects of processing parameters

Abstract

. Biodegradable polymers have been widely used for scaffolds in tissue engineering which aims to form completely natural tissues without leaving permanently synthetic element(s) in the human body. Poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) is a natural, biocompatible and biodegradable polymer suitable for tissue engineering applications. This paper reports the fabrication and characterization of threedimensional, highly porous PHBV scaffolds produced through the emulsion freezing/freeze-drying technique. PHBV emulsions having 2.5%, 5%, 7.5%, 10%, 12.5% (w/v) PHBV concentrations were used. Freezing and freeze-drying of polymer/solvent/water phase emulsions produced hard and tough scaffolds with interconnected pores having good handling quality. The porosity of scaffolds changed from 85% to 71% when the PHBV concentration in emulsions increased from 2.5% to 12.5%. Compressive mechanical properties of scaffolds were increased with increasing PHBV concentration. The scaffolds had pore sizes ranging from several microns to a few hundred microns.