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    Cellulose nanocrystals as biobased nucleation agents in poly-L-lactide scaffold: Crystallization behavior and mechanical properties

    Year: 2020

    Journal: Polym. Test, Volume 85, MAY

    Authors: Shuai, Cijun; Yuan, Xun; Yang, Wenjing; Peng, Shuping; He, Chongxian; Feng, Pei; Qi, Fangwei; Wang, Guoyong

    Organizations: Natural Science Foundation of ChinaNational Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) [51935014, 51905553, 81871494, 81871498, 51705540]; Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of ChinaNatural Science Foundation of Hunan Province [2019JJ50774, 2018JJ3671, 2019JJ50588]; JiangXi Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China [20192ACB20005]; Guangdong Province Higher Vocational Colleges & Schools Pearl River Scholar Funded Scheme (2018); Open Sharing Fund for the Large-scale Instruments and Equipments of Central South University; Project of Hunan Provincial Science and Technology Plan [2017RS3008]

    Keywords: Mechanical properties; Crystallinity; Cellulose nanocrystals; Heterogeneous nucleation; Bone repair

    The mechanical strength of polymer scaffold is closely related to its crystallinity. In this work, cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) were incorporated into poly-L-lactide (PLLA) scaffold which was fabricated by selective laser sintering, aiming to improve the mechanical properties. CNC possesses numerous hydroxyl groups which might form hydrogen bond with PLLA molecular chains. The hydrogen bond induces the ordered arrangement of PLLA chain by using CNC as heterogeneous nucleating agent, thereby increasing crystallization rate and crystallinity. Results showed that PLLA scaffolds with 3 wt% CNC resulted in 191%, 351%, 34%, 83.5%, 56% increase in compressive strength, compressive modulus, tensile strength, tensile modulus and Vickers hardness, respectively. Encouragingly, with the incorporation of hydrophilic CNC, the PLLA/CNC scaffolds showed not only better hydrophilicity, but also faster degradation than PLLA. In vitro cell culture studies proved that the PLLA/CNC scaffolds were biocompatible and capable of supporting cell adhesion, proliferation and differentiation. The above results indicated that the PLLA/CNC scaffolds may therefore be a potential replacement in bone repair.
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