Desarrollo de scaffolds funcionales utilizando CO2 supercrítico para su aplicación en biomedicina
AUTORA: Laura Delgado Gallego
TUTORES: Dra. Clara Pereyra y Dr. Antonio Montes
MÁSTER: Ingeniería Química
CURSO: 2020-2021
RESUMEN:
In the biomedical field we face increasingly pressing challenges such as the low number of organ donors and the need to reduce adverse immunological reactions caused by transplantation, among others. Thus, Tissue Engineering arises with the purpose of manufacturing compatible biomaterials that can regenerate the whole damaged tissue constituting an improved alternative to these invasive interventions.
In this context, conjugated polymers are biomaterials that possess elevated conductive characteristics due to their molecular composition. However, they are rigid and fragile so they must be combined with non-conductive polymers in order to eliminate these disadvantages. Thus, the mixture of conductor-non-conductive polymers has been shown to have a high therapeutic capacity if processed as scaffolds by supercritical foaming.
For this reason, this final project has focused on the generation of three-dimensional scaffolds from the polymeric mixture of polycaprolactone and polyaniline (PANI) by foaming using the green technology of supercritical fluids and evaluating their potential as implants in the biomedical area of tissue engineering.
A number of preliminary experiments have been carried out to select the most suitable polymer mixture to obtain scaffolds through the process of supercritical foaming. In order to evaluate the therapeutic potential of the samples obtained, a series of experiments was designed to determine which variables were the most influential in obtaining three-dimensional scaffolds, incorporating temperature, pressure, polymer ratio and depressurization rate as input variables. The tested characteristics were internal morphology, porosity, expansion factor, incorporated PANi, biodegradability, mechanical and electrical properties.
The tests showed a great influence of all the input variables studied, as well as a great interconnection between them. Although it was not possible to obtain a scaffold itself, the best operating conditions tested were 70 ºC, 100 bar, 5:1 ratio and a depressurization rate of 20 bar/min.