Barbieri Thesis - BioMedical Materials program (BMM)

Chapter 7 – Polymer molecular weight and instructive composites
Contact angle, when measured as soon as distilled water was placed on the surfaces
(time 0 sec), showed close values for both composites demonstrating their similarity in
surface hydrophilicity (i.e. equivalent surface energy). However, within five minutes ML
had a more pronounced decrease in contact angle (Figure 4a), i.e. a quicker spreading,
roughly indicating a higher rate in water absorption than MH.
7.3.3. In vitro degradation of the composites in saline physiological solution (SPS)
In a period of three months the composites degraded as demonstrated by their mass
loss, continuous release of calcium and phosphate ions (Table 4, Figure 5a,b) and a
slight increase of their apatite phase contents (p0.6 and p>0.4 for perimeter and thickness respectively) (Table 3, Figure 3).
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