Document Type

Thesis

Date of Award

Summer 8-31-2002

Degree Name

Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering - (M.S.)

Department

Biomedical Engineering Committee

First Advisor

Michael Jaffe

Second Advisor

Treena Livingston Arinzeh

Third Advisor

Jing Wu

Abstract

Synthetic polymers have found widespread usage and acceptance in various areas of the medical device industry. The recognition that no polymeric biornaterials are truly biocompatible has led to the search for bioerodible materials with desirable biological and physical properties for use as tissue engineering scaffolds and to enable in-vivo devices. Several methodologies have been tried and tested to invent the "ideal" biopolymer. The ideal polymeric biomaterial would be one that offers a favorable response at both the cellular and the systemic level with minimum alteration to its mechanical properties and chemistry. The systematic investigation of process-structure-property space to determine the technical limits of the polymer performance, focusing on dimensional stability, has been studied in depth. The purpose of this study is to apply the material science paradigm to the Kohn polymers to:

  • Assess the relationship of processing history to dimensional stability of polymers.
  • Develop characterization protocols relevant to in-vivo use.
  • Produce samples of known structure to investigate biological response

The results of this study shows the origin of the shrinkage of the Poly(2,2) to be caused by water plasticizing the Tg from 85°C to less than 37°C under aqueous test condition while the Poly(12,10) shows long range order unaffected by 37°C water.

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