Improvement of wetting property for porous PLGA scaffold by physicochemical treatment

To improve the wetting property and hydrophilicity of porous poly(L-lactide-coglycolide) (75:25 by mole ratio of lactide to glycolide, PLGA) scaffold fabricated by emulsion freeze-drying method, the physicochemical treatments has been demonstrated. Chemical treatments were 70% perchloric acid, 50% sulfuric acid and 0.5 N sodium hydroxide solution and physical methods were corona and plasma treatment. The wetting property of chemically treated PLGA scaffold ranked in the order of 70% perchloric acid, 50% sulfuric acid and 0.5 N sodium hydroxide solution by blue dye intrusion experiment, whereas physical methods were no effects. It was observed that wettability increased by water contact angle measurement and electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis. This result provides evidence for the incorporation of the oxygen molecules into the PLGA surfaces which can increase hydrophilicity during physicochemical treatment. It can be suggested that chemical treatment method may be useful uniformly seeding porous biodegradable PLGA scaffolds for the application of tissue engineering area.