Permeability of Porous Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) Barriers of Single and Bilayer Type for Implant Applications
Journal article, 2014

Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) is a polyester which shows excellent biocompatibility and a PHB material is therefore considered suitable for many biomedical applications. A highly porous PHB material may be designed to facilitate the transport of small molecules and body fluids or serve as a biocompatible temporary barrier. In this study, PHB films with varying degree of porosity and pore interconnectivity were made by solvent casting using water-in-oil emulsion templates of varying composition. The morphology was characterized by SEM and the water permeability of the films was determined. The results show that an increased water content of the template emulsion resulted in a film with increased porosity. A fine tuning of the film morphology of the casted films was achieved by varying the salt content of the water phase of the template emulsion. It was concluded that the major determinant of the water permeability through these films is the pore interconnectivity. Furthermore, we report on the formation and water permeability of bilayer PHB films consisting of a porous layer combined with a dense backing layer.

Author

Anna Bergstrand

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Pharmaceutical Technology

SuMo Biomaterials

Sanna Uppström

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering

Anette Larsson

SuMo Biomaterials

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Pharmaceutical Technology

International Journal of Polymer Science

1687-9422 (ISSN) 1687-9430 (eISSN)

Vol. 2014 Art. no. 958975- 958975

Subject Categories

Polymer Chemistry

Biophysics

Fluid Mechanics and Acoustics

Areas of Advance

Materials Science

DOI

10.1155/2014/958975

More information

Latest update

5/28/2024