Abstract:
Synthetic polymeric bio ceramic scaffolds are employed for tissue regeneration, which involves the fabrication of functional structures. We synthesized the bio ceramic filler hydroxyapatite (HA) which enhances the mechanical properties and cell adhesion properties of scaffolds. By using wet chemical Analysis technique, Hydroxyapatite is synthesized. To obtain the optimum particle size we annealed HA at three different temperatures, 500℃, 900℃ and 1200℃. SEM results of Hydroxyapatite depict that by increasing annealing temperature the particle size of HA also increases and porosity decreases due to sintering that occur among the ceramic powder particles. The XRD results show that the crystalline peaks of HA are sharper at high temperatures. After the synthesis of ceramic filler, we synthesized four different composites of Polycaprolactone (PCL) and four different composites of TOPAS (cyclic olefin copolymer) with hydroxyapatite (HA) as the ceramic filler by solution casting method. We are aiming to study the enhancement in mechanical properties of PCL by adding HA. The samples were designed according to ASTM standard for tensile testing. By comparing the tensile results of PCL/HA composites it is observed that mechanical properties of PCL are significantly enhanced by adding hydroxyapatite. We also analyzed the dispersion of hydroxyapatite in the composite films of PCL and TOPAS by carrying out scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis.
