Solvent Free Fabrication of Biodegradable Porous Polymers

Biodegradable porous polymers with interconnected pores of sub-micrometers to a few hundred micrometers find many applications in emerging technology areas such as tissue engineering, controlled drug delivery, and biochemical sensors. However, most of the current fabrication processes involve organic solvents and chemical blowing agents that may cause environmental concerns and leave residues harmful to biological cells. This paper presents a solvent free fabrication approach for biodegradable porous polymers. Ultrasound cavitation is introduced after the solid state foaming process to produce open cell structures. The material used in this study is polylactic acid (PLA). It belongs to a family of biodegradable polymers that can be used for tissue engineering scaffolds. In order to identify suitable conditions to apply ultrasound, a saturation and foaming study is conducted for the PLA-CO₂ gas polymer system. The effects of various process variables are discussed.