In recent years, considerable attention has been given to chitosan-based materials and their applications in the field of tissue engineering. However, the techniques proposed until now for the formation of chitosan scaffolds present some limitations such as: they are very time-consuming, use organic solvents, have difficulties in the obtainment and preservation of various levels of porosity and the 3-D structure. In this work, a new SC-CO2 assisted process for the production of chitosan scaffolds is proposed; it consists of three steps: formation of a chitosan hydrogel by thermally induced phase separation; substitution of water with a suitable solvent; drying of the gel using SC-CO2. Using this process, we produced chitosan nanostructured networks with filaments diameters around 50 nm, without any collapse of the gel nanostructure, characterized by a high porosity (>91%) and high compressive modulus (150 kPa).
Generation of chitosan nanoporous structures for tissue engineering applications using a supercritical fluid assisted process
Cardea, Stefano
;Pisanti, Paola;Reverchon, Ernesto
2010
Abstract
In recent years, considerable attention has been given to chitosan-based materials and their applications in the field of tissue engineering. However, the techniques proposed until now for the formation of chitosan scaffolds present some limitations such as: they are very time-consuming, use organic solvents, have difficulties in the obtainment and preservation of various levels of porosity and the 3-D structure. In this work, a new SC-CO2 assisted process for the production of chitosan scaffolds is proposed; it consists of three steps: formation of a chitosan hydrogel by thermally induced phase separation; substitution of water with a suitable solvent; drying of the gel using SC-CO2. Using this process, we produced chitosan nanostructured networks with filaments diameters around 50 nm, without any collapse of the gel nanostructure, characterized by a high porosity (>91%) and high compressive modulus (150 kPa).I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.