ABSTRACTOsteoarthritis is a very complex illness of the joints that affects cartilage and subcondral bone. At the last years, researching has been focused in the development and characterization of composite materials, evaluating their structural properties. Some o those composite materials are constituted by organic and inorganic compounds forming hybrids. These materials can improve their properties due to the interaction of reinforcement hard particles in the polymeric matrix. The interest on the composite biomaterials has been increased on the biomedical applications such as tissue regenerating based in synthetic polymers with biodegradable and biocompatible properties whose can be reinforced by calcium phosphates. In this sense, hydroxyapatite [Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2] is often used for biological implants due its mineral phase similitude with bone microstructure and tissue compatibility. Similarly, polylactic acid (PLA) is a used polymer for implant applications due physicochemical and biocompatibility properties, and short degradation time also. In order to obtain a composite that can be used as a regenerating material on the osteoarthritis problem, in this work a (90/10 wt.%) polylactic/hydroxyapatite hybrid composite was produced by chemical synthesis and characterized by X-ray diffraction, SEM, FT-IR and TGA/DSC techniques.
The preparation of biodegradable composite materials based on polyvinyl alcohol
