Biomedical Processing of Polyhydroxyalkanoates
Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry, University of Pisa, UdR INSTM – Pisa, Via G. Moruzzi 13, 56124 Pisa, Italy
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Bioengineering 2019, 6(4), 108; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering6040108
Received: 30 October 2019
/
Revised: 25 November 2019
/
Accepted: 25 November 2019
/
Published: 29 November 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) Production, Volume 2)
The rapidly growing interest on polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) processing for biomedical purposes is justified by the unique combinations of characteristics of this class of polymers in terms of biocompatibility, biodegradability, processing properties, and mechanical behavior, as well as by their great potential for sustainable production. This article aims at overviewing the most exploited processing approaches employed in the biomedical area to fabricate devices and other medical products based on PHA for experimental and commercial applications. For this purpose, physical and processing properties of PHA are discussed in relationship to the requirements of conventionally-employed processing techniques (e.g., solvent casting and melt-spinning), as well as more advanced fabrication approaches (i.e., electrospinning and additive manufacturing). Key scientific investigations published in literature regarding different aspects involved in the processing of PHA homo- and copolymers, such as poly(3-hydroxybutyrate), poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate), and poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyhexanoate), are critically reviewed.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
polyhydroxyalkanoates processing; electrospinning; additive manufacturing; selective laser sintering; fused deposition modeling; computer-aided wet-spinning
▼
Show Figures
Graphical abstract
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Puppi, D.; Pecorini, G.; Chiellini, F. Biomedical Processing of Polyhydroxyalkanoates. Bioengineering 2019, 6, 108. https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering6040108
AMA Style
Puppi D, Pecorini G, Chiellini F. Biomedical Processing of Polyhydroxyalkanoates. Bioengineering. 2019; 6(4):108. https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering6040108
Chicago/Turabian StylePuppi, Dario, Gianni Pecorini, and Federica Chiellini. 2019. "Biomedical Processing of Polyhydroxyalkanoates" Bioengineering 6, no. 4: 108. https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering6040108
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
