Preparation and characterization of n-hydroxyapatite/PCL-pluronic-PCL nanocomposites for tissue engineering

In this paper, a new kind of polymeric nanocomposite materials based on nano-hydroxyapatite (n-HA) and PCL-Pluronic-PCL (PCFC) copolymer were prepared by in situ combination method. Firstly, the PCFC copolymer was synthesized by ring-opening polymerization of epsilon-caprolactone initiated by Pluronic (PEG-PPG-PEG); Secondly, n-HA powder were combined with PCFC to form polymeric composites in the presence of hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI). The obtained composites were characterized by 1H-NMR, FTIR, XRD, TEM, SEM, DTA/TGA, and tensile testing. The results revealed that n-HA could be dispersed into polymer matrix uniformly, and the n-HA/PCFC composite showed great mechanical properties when the content of n-HA was 10 wt%. The microstructure and thermal properties of the composites were discussed in the paper too. The experimental results suggested that this polymeric nanocomposite might have great potential application in the field of tissue engineering.