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Influence of Fused Deposition Molding Printing Process on the Toughness and Miscibility of Polylactic Acid/Polycaprolactone Blends

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Abstract

Toughness is a prerequisite for bone scaffold matrix material if such material is to be used in clinic. Blending with polycaprolactone (PCL) is the most used method to improve the toughness of polylactic acid (PLA), while improving their miscibility in the absence of the compatibilizer is always a challenge. To address this issue, the printing process was proposed to improve the miscibility of PLA and PCL. PLA/PCL Blends at different compositions were extruded into filaments and used to print samples. The results of Fourier transform infrared and thermogravimetric analysis indicate that the processing temperatures of the extruder and FDM printer do not cause the degradation of PCL in blend. Following, the influence of FDM printing process on their miscibility was investigated in terms of mechanical properties, surface morphology and melting behavior. Results show that the printing process can effectively improve the miscibility and toughness, and the most appropriate PCL concentration used to blend with PLA is 20 wt.%. At 20 wt.% PCL concentration, the printed blend has an elongation of 189%, which is an increase of about 950% compared with pure PLA. This research not only expands the PLA/PCL blend research, but also provides a process guidance for FDM printing PLA/PCL bone scaffolds.

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Acknowledgments

This project was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51905438), The National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2019QY(Y)0502), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 31020210506006), the Innovation Platform of Biofabrication (Grant No.17SF0002), and the Key Research and Development program of Shaanxi Province (Grant No. 2018ZDXM-GY-133). We would like to thank the Analytical & Testing Center of Northwestern Polytechnical University for SEM and FTIR tests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Industry Engineering Department, School of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710072, People’s Republic of China

    Qinghua Wei, Daocen Sun, Rongbin Yang, Yanmei Wang, Juan Zhang, Xinpei Li & Yanen Wang

  2. Institute of Medical Research, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710072, People’s Republic of China

    Qinghua Wei, Daocen Sun, Rongbin Yang, Yanmei Wang, Juan Zhang, Xinpei Li & Yanen Wang

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  1. Qinghua Wei
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Correspondence to Qinghua Wei or Yanen Wang.

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Wei, Q., Sun, D., Yang, R. et al. Influence of Fused Deposition Molding Printing Process on the Toughness and Miscibility of Polylactic Acid/Polycaprolactone Blends. J. of Materi Eng and Perform 31, 1338–1345 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-021-06293-z

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