Ionic liquid-mediated processing of SAIB-Chitin scaffolds

This study proposes a green and innovative ionic liquid (ILs) methodology for processing sucrose acetate isobutyrate (SAIB) porous structures for tissue engineering. The solubilization of SAIB in an ionic liquid (IL), namely 1-butyl- imidazolium acetate (BMIMOAc) was achieved, for the first time, allowing the development of SAIB-based scaffolds. In the early stages of the process development, it was needed to add chitin in the scaffold’s compositions, to provide a steady structure. Physicochemical, mechanical and biological techniques evaluated the characteristics of the produced scaffolds. The FTIR results confirmed the presence of Chitin and SAIB as well as the influence of the applied solvent, for the IL removal. The XRD analysis shows that the presence of SAIB contributes to a decrease in the crystallinity of the scaffolds. Moreover, the morphology of the structures varied upon the preparation conditions used, demonstrating that it is possible to obtain scaffolds with different values of porosity (ranging from 52 % to 85 %). No cytotoxicity was found when culturing in vitro hASCs onto the surface of the produced scaffolds, during 72h. This study showed that processing SAIB-based scaffolds is feasible using ILs and that those structures exhibit promising features for tissue engineering scaffolding applications.