No abstract

No abstract

Fabricating novel materials for biomedical applications mostly require the use of biodegradable materials. In this work biodegradable materials like polylactic acid (PLA) and chitosan (CHS) were used for designing electrospun mats. This work reports the physical and chemical characterization of the PLA-CHS composite, prepared by the electrospinning technique using a mixed solvent system. The addition of chitosan into PLA, offered decrease in fiber diameter in the composites with uniformity in the distribution of fibers with an optimum at 0.4wt% CHS. The fiber formation and the reduction in fiber diameter were confirmed by the SEM micrograph. The inverse gas chromatography and contact angle measurements supported the increase of hydrophobicity of the composite membrane with increase of filler concentration. The weak interaction between PLA and chitosan was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and thermal analysis. The stability of the composite was established by zeta potential measurements. Cytotoxicity studies of the membranes were also carried out and found that up to 0.6% CHS the composite material was noncytotoxic. The current findings are very important for the design and development of new materials based on polylactic acid-chitosan composites for environmental and biomedical applications.

Green Polyols were synthesized from a 1-butene cross metathesized palm oil (PMTAG) using a green, solvent free epoxidation and hydroxylation pathway. The synthetic strategy was adapted to control the degree of double bond epoxidation and ultimately the hydroxyl value of the polyols. The polyols comprised diol and tetrol monomers with terminal hydroxyl groups content as high as 18 mol %, and achieved hydroxyl values between 83 and 119 mg KOH g 21 . Functional Rigid and highly flexible foams were prepared from two designer Green Polyols. The foams presented a high thermal stability (T on of degradation of 270 8C), suitable glass transition temperatures (212 8C and 50 8C) and compressive strength (0.21 MPa at 10% strain and 1 MPa at 10% strain for the flexible and rigid foams, respectively) which are superior to existing lipid-based counterparts. V C 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016, 133, 43509. Olefin cross metathesis of natural oils and fats is an important organic synthesis technique that is used to produce fine chemicals, substrates, and materials, many of which serve as or are potential petrochemical replacements. [16][17][18][19][20] The cross metathesis reaction effectively shortens some of the unsaturated fatty acids of the TAGs at the unsaturated sites, producing terminal double Additional Supporting Information may be found in the online version of this article.

No abstract