Characterisation of poly(vinyl alcohol)- polycaprolactone hybridized scaffold for potential skin tissue regeneration

The fabrication of a hybridized scaffold constituting hydrophobic and hydrophilic polymers for tissue engineering has received an increasing attention recently. Due to the high compatibility with water, a hydrophilic polymer, though is able to enhance cell affinity and proliferation, has a very high biodegradable rate and low stability in aqueous medium that eventually puncture its biomedical applications. Thereby, the addition of a hydrophobic polymer in the hydrophilic polymer scaffold is recommended to increase the hydrophobic property of the scaffold in order to reduce the limitation. Nonetheless, the fabrication of the hybridized scaffold is extremely challenging because the hydrophilic and the hydrophobic polymer tends to dissolve in different types of solvents, i.e. water and organic solvent, respectively, that subsequently restricts their blending process. In this work, a poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) scaffold, a polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffold, and their hybridized scaffold were produced through casting method for potential skin tissue regeneration. We found that the glacial acetic acid was an appropriate solvent used to prepare hydrophobic PCL solution with low molecular weight (16 kDa) for PCL-PVA blend, with mass ratio 1:1, without using any surfactant. The solvent was also used for the preparation of PCL scaffold with high molecular weight (80 kDa). The fabricated polymer scaffolds were then evaluated using FTIR-ATR, contact angle measurement, and tensile strength analysis. FESEM images of the PVA-PCL hybridized scaffold showed that the PCL was well dispersed in the PVA scaffold. FTIR-ATR spectra showed that the hybridized scaffold exhibited the crucial functional group of PVA and PCL at 3310.97, 1720.10, 1557.80, 1241.69, 1172.90, 1044.95, and 719.44 cm-1. The contact angle of the PVA, PCL, and PVA-PCL hybridized scaffold were 61.3o, 82.7o, and 75.9o, respectively, with tensile strength 16.5747, 2.4038, and 7.417 MPa, respectively.