Manufacturing methods, properties, and potential applications in bone tissue regeneration of hydroxyapatite-chitosan biocomposites: A review

Hydroxyapatite (HA) and chitosan (CS) biopolymer are the major materials investigated for biomedical purposes. Both of these components play an important role in the orthopedic field as bone substitutes or drug release systems. Used separately, the hydroxyapatite is quite fragile, while CS mechanical strength is very weak. Therefore, a combination of HA and CS polymer is used, which provides excellent mechanical performance with high biocompatibility and biomimetic capacity. Moreover, the porous structure and reactivity of the hydroxyapatite-chitosan (HA-CS) composite allow their application not only as a bone repair but also as a drug delivery system providing controlled drug release directly to the bone site. These features make biomimetic HA-CS composite a subject of interest for many researchers. Through this review, we provide the important recent achievements in the development of HA-CS composites, focusing on manufacturing techniques, conventional and novel three-dimensional bioprinting technology, and physicochemical and biological properties. The drug delivery properties and the most relevant biomedical applications of the HA-CS composite scaffolds are also presented. Finally, alternative approaches are proposed to develop HA composites with the aim to improve their physicochemical, mechanical, and biological properties.

Sustainable phosphorylated microcrystalline cellulose toward enhanced removal performance of methylene blue

In this study, microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) was phosphorylated using phosphoric acid in the presence of urea and used as an adsorbent for methylene blue (MB) dye removal from an aqueous solution. The obtained products were characterized by different techniques. Batch adsorption experiments were conducted under varying conditions of incubation time, initial MB concentration, pH, and phosphorylation degree. All the samples exhibited similar and fast adsorption kinetics, described by pseudo-second-order model for MB adsorption, whereas the retention capacity depended significantly on the phosphate content and the surface charge of the adsorbents. The experimental adsorption data in the examined MB initial concentrations (0-2000 mg/L) were best suited by the Langmuir isotherm model. The study revealed that the presence of phosphates groups in the cellulose structure significantly enhanced the adsorption of the MB pollutant. The maximum dye removal capacity at pH of 7 was obtained for the phosphorylated microcrystalline cellulose (284.03 mg/g) with a high phosphorylation degree (1.92 % of P), which is 20 times higher than unmodified MCC (15.29 mg/g). This property increased from 284.03 to 328.32 mg/g when increasing the pH from 7 to 11. The MB adsorption mechanism involves hydrogen bonding, electrostatic and ion-dipole interactions. These findings are relevant to a better understanding of the role of cellulose phosphorylation in the recovery of organic dyes from the waste liquid of many industries.

Unsaturated copolyesters of lactide

Four classes of unsaturated copolyesters of l-lactide were prepared either from isosorbide or bis(hydroxymethyl)tricyclodecane in combination with fumaric acid or from 1,4-butenediol or 1,4-butynediol with terephthalic acid.