TY - JOUR
T1 - Systematic characterization of porosity and mass transport and mechanical properties of porous polyurethane scaffolds
AU - Wang, Yu Fu
AU - Barrera, Carlos M.
AU - Dauer, Edward A.
AU - Gu, Weiyong
AU - Andreopoulos, Fotios
AU - Huang, C. Y.Charles
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported by the University of Miami Provost's Research Award .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2017/1/1
Y1 - 2017/1/1
N2 - One of the key challenges in porous scaffold design is to create a porous structure with desired mechanical function and mass transport properties which support delivery of biofactors and development of function tissue substitute. In recent years, polyurethane (PU) has become one of the most popular biomaterials in various tissue engineering fields. However, there are no studies fully investigating the relations between porosity and both mass transport and mechanical properties of PU porous scaffolds. In this paper, we fabricated PU scaffolds by combining phase inversion and salt (sodium chloride) leaching methods. The tensile and compressive moduli were examined on PU scaffolds fabricated with different PU concentrations (25%, 20% and 15% w/v) and salt/PU weight ratios (9/1, 6/1, 3/1 and 0/1). The mass transport properties of PU scaffolds including hydraulic permeability and glucose diffusivity were also measured. Furthermore, the relationships between the porosity and mass transport and mechanical properties of porous PU scaffold were systemically investigated. The results demonstrated that porosity is a key parameter which governs both mass transport and mechanical properties of porous PU scaffolds. With similar pore sizes, the mass transport and mechanical properties of porous PU scaffold can be described as single functions of porosity regardless of initial PU concentration. The relationships between scaffold porosity and properties can be utilized to facilitate porous PU scaffold fabrication with specific mass transport and mechanical properties. The systematic approach established in this study can be applied to characterization of other biomaterials for scaffold design and fabrication.
AB - One of the key challenges in porous scaffold design is to create a porous structure with desired mechanical function and mass transport properties which support delivery of biofactors and development of function tissue substitute. In recent years, polyurethane (PU) has become one of the most popular biomaterials in various tissue engineering fields. However, there are no studies fully investigating the relations between porosity and both mass transport and mechanical properties of PU porous scaffolds. In this paper, we fabricated PU scaffolds by combining phase inversion and salt (sodium chloride) leaching methods. The tensile and compressive moduli were examined on PU scaffolds fabricated with different PU concentrations (25%, 20% and 15% w/v) and salt/PU weight ratios (9/1, 6/1, 3/1 and 0/1). The mass transport properties of PU scaffolds including hydraulic permeability and glucose diffusivity were also measured. Furthermore, the relationships between the porosity and mass transport and mechanical properties of porous PU scaffold were systemically investigated. The results demonstrated that porosity is a key parameter which governs both mass transport and mechanical properties of porous PU scaffolds. With similar pore sizes, the mass transport and mechanical properties of porous PU scaffold can be described as single functions of porosity regardless of initial PU concentration. The relationships between scaffold porosity and properties can be utilized to facilitate porous PU scaffold fabrication with specific mass transport and mechanical properties. The systematic approach established in this study can be applied to characterization of other biomaterials for scaffold design and fabrication.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jmbbm.2016.09.029
DO - 10.1016/j.jmbbm.2016.09.029
M3 - Article
C2 - 27741496
AN - SCOPUS:84991721573
VL - 65
SP - 657
EP - 664
JO - Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials
JF - Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials
SN - 1751-6161
ER -