Poly(ester‐co‐glycidyl methacrylate) for digital light processing in biomedical applications

Abstract

AbstractMethacrylate‐containing polyesters exploited for digital light processing (DLP) are generally prepared through ring‐opening polymerization followed by photoactivation via methacrylation, which commonly requires the additional chemical and reaction workup. Herein, such a drawback is overcome by introducing a facile method of sequential addition of ester monomer and glycidyl methacrylate into the reaction. Two different hydroxyl beginning monomers, that is, ethylene glycol and glycerol, were utilized. The chemical structures and molecular weights of the resultant copolymers were analyzed using 1H‐NMR and ATR‐FTIR spectroscopy and size exclusion chromatography, respectively. The effects of the copolymer structures on the properties of both resins formulated with and without hydroxyapatite, for example, rheological behavior and printability, and DLP‐printed specimens, for example, mechanical property and cytotoxicity, were assessed. By controlling the beginning monomer to monomer feeding ratio from 1:6 to 1:14, the Mn values of the resultant copolymers fell in the range of 1.7 to 2.5 kDa. The DLP‐printed specimens possessed compressive moduli in the range of 10.20 ± 0.16 MPa and 18.65 ± 0.75 MPa. The cytotoxicity result suggested that the DLP‐printed specimens were noncytotoxic to porcine chondrocytes. Altogether, these methacrylate‐containing polyesters simply synthesized via a concise one‐pot reaction revealed great potential for DLP printing resins in biomedical applications.