Kinetic study of collagen fixation with polyepoxy fixatives

A new biomaterial has been developed by fixing native collagen with a polyepoxy compound (PC) fixative. In this study, bovine internal thoracic arteries were fixed with PC under various conditions to help understand the kinetics of the collagen-PC reactions and optimize the fixation process. At predetermined time intervals, small samples were cut from the arteries to determine the quantities of the remaining unreacted amino acids in the collagen. Temperature, concentration, and solution pH were among the key parameters studied. The overall fixation rate was found to be reaction-rate controlled, as the rate of fixation was relatively slow compared with the rate of diffusion of PC. As might be expected, the reaction rate was favored by a higher temperature, concentration, and solution pH. A kinetic model, with a 2.5th reaction order with respect to the reactive functional groups of collagen and a first order with respect to PC, was developed that gave a good fit to the experimental data. Based on this model, the degree of fixation, X, as a function of time, t, is given by (1 - X)-1.5 = 1 + Kt, where K is a constant related to the initial concentrations and the reaction rate constant.