Chitosan/Poly (ε-Caprolactone) Composite Hydrogel for Tissue Engineering Applications

The aim of this study was to fabricate the three-dimensional (3D) porous structure of chitosan/Poly (epsilon-caprolactone) (PCL) hydrogels with improved mechanical properties for tissue engineering applications. A modified emulsion lyophilization technique was developed to produce a 3D chitosan/PCL scaffold. The addition of 25 wt% and 50 wt% of PCL into chitosan substantially enhanced the compressive strength of hydrogel 160% and 290%, respectively, compared to pure chitosan hydrogel. The result of ATR-FTIR corroborates that PCL and chitosan physically co-existed in the composite mixture. The composites comprised of uniform macro (59.7 +/- 14.4 mu m) and micro (4.4 +/- 1.5 mu m) pores as observed in the SEM images. The composites acquired in this study with homogeneous porous structure and improved intergrity may have a high potential for the production of 3D scaffolds that can be used in various tissue engineering applications. The results of confocal fluorescence microscopy confirmed that fibroblast cells were proliferated in the 3D structure of these composite scaffolds.