Supercritical CO2 assisted impregnation of natural extracts in polylactide/polycarbonate blends

Abstract

In the present project, we aim to impregnate clove natural extract into bioreabsorbable polycarbonate/polylactide blends by supercritical CO2-assisted impregnation for creating bioactive-eluting implants. The success of this project will rely on combining the expertise of each team, in particular on the fields of CO2-sourced monomers synthesis, copolymer synthesis, scCO2-impregnation and polymers characterization. The project is related to an ongoing FAPESP project that deals with developing a methodology for optimizing scCO2-impregnation process of polymers with Brazilian natural extracts. To promote the impregnation of all the molecules of the extract into the polymer, two immiscible polymers (i.e. PC and PLLA) will be copolymerized and blended with commercial PLLA to create (nano)domains that will display different behaviors in scCO2 and different affinity for each compound which is expected to increase the control of the impregnation. The impact of the blend composition on the loading of each component of the cocktail and on the release profile will be studied. The clove extract is selected as a model extract for to its unique bioactivity that arises from the complementary and synergistic actions of its 4 main compounds. (AU)