Synthesis, Characterization, and Optimization Studies of Polycaprolactone/Polylactic Acid/Titanium Dioxide...

The development of scaffolds for cell regeneration has increased because they must have adequate biocompatibility and mechanical properties to be applied in tissue engineering. In this sense, incorporating nanofillers or essential oils has allowed new architectures to promote cell proliferation and regeneration of new tissue. With this goal, we prepared four membranes based on polylactic acid (PLA), polycaprolactone (PCL), titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO₂-NPs), and orange essential oil (OEO) by the drop-casting method. The preparation of TiO₂-NPs followed the sol-gel process with spherical morphology and an average size of 13.39 nm ± 2.28 nm. The results show how the TiO₂-NP properties predominate over the crystallization processes, reflected in the decreasing crystallinity percentage from 5.2% to 0.6% in the membranes. On the other hand, when OEO and TiO₂-NPs are introduced into a membrane, they act synergistically due to the inclusion of highly conjugated thermostable molecules and the thermal properties of TiO₂-NPs. Finally, incorporating OEO and TiO₂-NPs promotes tissue regeneration due to the decrease in inflammatory infiltrate and the appearance of connective tissue. These results demonstrate the great potential for biomedical applications of the membranes prepared.