Preparation And Characterization Of Starch/Chitosan And Polylactide Grafted Copolymer

Tissue engineering is becoming one of the most active fields in biomedical engineering because of its importance and wide application in tissue repairing and reconstruction. As one of the three elements of tissue engineering, the scaffold is the basic of tissue reconstruction. Both chitosan and polylactide are good biocompatible polymers which are widely used in biomedical engineering especially in tissue engineering as scaffolds. The copolymers of starch/chitosan and polylactide were prepared and characterized in this paper. Firstly, the 6-O-triphenylmethyl-2-phthalimido-chitosan or trimethylsilyl-protected starch were prepared using chitosan or starch as the raw materials, then they were used as macroinitiators in copolymerization. The structures of copolymer products were proved by the methods of FT-IR UV ¹H and ¹³C NMR. In addition that the DSC /TG testing proved that the thermal properties of copolymers were different from pure PLA and chitosan; the contact angle test demonstrated the copolymers were more hydrophilic than pure PLA; the XRD test gave the results that the copolymers had different crystal forms. The protection groups in the copolymers which were prepared previously could be removed and the -NH2 and -OH groups could be reconverted. These high active groups can be used to introduce more bioactive groups and molecules so as to simulate the natural environments of ECM, so the biocompatibilities and cells adhesive capabilities between scaffolds and cells could be improved remarkably.