Facile synthesis of templated macrocellular nanocomposite scaffold <i>via</i> emulsifier-free HIPE-ROP
Meenal Agrawal, Anilkumar Yadav, Bhanu Nandan, Rajiv K. Srivastava
Abstract
A macrocellular nanocomposite scaffold of crosslinked poly(ε-caprolactone) was made by conducting a ring-opening polymerization of an emulsifier-free Pickering high internal phase emulsion (HIPE). The Pickering HIPE formulation, stabilized using hydrophobically modified silica nanoparticles (mSiNPs), showed extraordinary stability up to a temperature of polymerization as high as 120 °C. The nanocomposite scaffolds demonstrated high porosity and a liquid uptake capacity of up to ∼23 g g-1. The scaffolds decorated with mSiNPs were mechanically robust and showed high resiliency under cyclic compression tests.
Topics & Concepts
NanocompositeScaffoldMaterials sciencePolymerizationChemical engineeringPorosityPickering emulsionEmulsionPolymer chemistryNanoparticleComposite materialNanotechnologyPolymerBiomedical engineeringMedicineEngineeringPickering emulsions and particle stabilizationProteins in Food SystemsSurfactants and Colloidal Systems