Effect of different nanoparticles on physicochemical and biological properties of emulsion templated poly (ε-caprolactone) scaffolds

Poly(epsilon-caprolactone) (PCL) based crosslinked nanocomposite scaffolds were fabricated utilizing the high internal phase emulsion (HIPE) templates. HIPEs were co-stabilized using the emulsifier, F127 and various nanoparticles i.e. clay, hydroxyapatite, silica, and graphene oxide. Resulting HIPEs demonstrated comparable droplet size, thus illustrating the role of nanoparticles with high aspect ratios in prohibiting droplet coalescence. Postpolymerization, the received nanocomposite scaffolds demonstrated improved compressional properties compared to Neat-PH scaffolds thus confirming the excellent polymer matrix and nanoparticle compatibility. Further, all the nanocomposite scaffolds demonstrated improved compressional properties compared to Neat-PH due to excellent polymer matrix and nanoparticle compatibility. Excellent liquid uptake capacity was observed in all the scaffolds for both hydrophilic (>2 g/g) as well as hydrophobic (>20 g/g) media, thereby proving the formation of highly interconnected networks throughout the intricacies of the scaffold. Additionally, all the nanocomposite scaffolds demonstrated the extremely high capability towards apatite nucleation thus indicating their ability towards increased biomineralization compared to Neat-PH scaffold. Finally, all the nanocomposite scaffolds had enhanced cytocompatibility when analyzed using MG63 cells.