Degradation Behavior In Vitro of Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs)/Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) Composite Suture

Abstract

Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) suture can be absorbed by the human body, and so have wide applications in modern surgery operations. The degradation period of PLA suture is expected to meet with the healing time of different types of wounds. In order to control the degradation period of the PLA suture, the carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were composited with PLA suture, and the degradation experiment in vitro was performed on sutures. The structure and properties of sutures during degradation, such as surface morphology, breaking strength, elongation, mass and chemical structure, were tracked and analyzed. The results indicated that the degradation brought about surface defects and resulted in 13.5 weeks for the strength valid time of the original PLA suture. By contrast, the strength valid time of the CNTs/PLA suture was increased to 26.6 weeks. Whilst the toughness of both the pure PLA and CNTs/PLA sutures decreased rapidly and almost disappeared after 3 to 4 weeks of degradation. The mass loss demonstrated that the time required for complete degradation of the two sutures was obviously different, the pure PLA suture 49 weeks, while CNTs/PLA sutures 63 to 73 weeks. The research proved that CNTs delayed PLA degradation and prolonged its strength valid time in degradation.

Controllable Drug Release Behavior of Polylactic Acid (PLA) Surgical Suture Coating with Ciprofloxacin (CPFX)—Polycaprolactone (PCL)/Polyglycolide (PGA)

“…It should be noted that the biopolymers of PGA and PCL, which are the carrier of drug and coated on the suture, have different degradation rate. The degradation rate of PGA is higher than that of PCL [16][17][18]. We can control the degradation rate of drug-carrier by adjusting the proportion of PGA and PCL.…”

Simulation of Percolation Threshold, Tunneling Distance, and Conductivity for Carbon Nanotube (CNT)-Reinforced Nanocomposites Assuming Effective CNT Concentration

“…Polymer carbon nanotubes (CNTs) nanocomposites (PCNT) are very attractive from research and application points of view, because they can elucidate important properties when the concentration of nanoparticles reaches the percolation threshold, which is the minimum CNT content that produces the conductive networks in nanocomposites [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Long and thin CNTs normally introduce a low percolation threshold, producing a conductive nanocomposite by incorporation of very low CNT content [16].…”

Study on the Effects of the Interphase Region on the Network Properties in Polymer Carbon Nanotube Nanocomposites

“…Many researchers have focused on polymer/carbon nanotubes (CNT) nanocomposites because their very low volume fractions show effective mechanical, thermal and chemical properties by preserving low density, transparency and simple processing [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. The addition of CNT or graphene to polymers forms conductive nanocomposites, which has produced scientific interest in the research communities due to their potential applications in different fields, such as electronics and sensors [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25].…”