Effects of Surface Treatments of Polycaprolactone Scaffolds on Their Properties

Polycaprolactone (PCL) was surface modified with alkaline hydrolysis by NaOH and/or low pressure oxygen (O-2) plasma treatment. The hydrolysis was conducted in two different stages: one was performed prior to PCL scaffold fabrication by a high pressure supercritical CO2 technique; the other was carried out after the fabrication. The resulting hydrolyzed PCL scaffolds, with pore sizes in the range of 150-250 mu m, were denoted as pre-HPCL and post-HPCL, respectively. Both non-hydrolyzed and hydrolyzed PCL scaffolds were subsequently subjected to the plasma treatment, to further enhance the hydrophilicity of the scaffolds. The surface morphology, wettability and chemical composition of all PCL scaffolds were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), water contact angle measurement, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), respectively. It was found that the surface of the scaffolds turned from fairly smooth to highly rough after the hydrolysis and plasma treatment, particularly when both treatments were in use. The post-hydrolysis induced more surface roughness, compared to the pre-hydrolysis. In addition, the water contact angles on the scaffolds enormously reduced after the treatments; plasma treatment, however, showed a more prominent effect than the alkaline hydrolysis. Although expressing a zero-degree contact angle, the plasma-treated pre-HPCL scaffold was wetted more readily than the plasma-treated post-HPCL. These were in good agreement with the XPS results; interestingly, the plasma-treated pre-HPCL scaffold exhibited the greatest O/C atomic ratio among the PCL scaffolds. This indicated its highest extent of PCL chain oxidation, a degradation of ester groups into -COOH and -OH groups.