Bacterial cellulose membranes and spheres composite with poly (l-lactic acid) through in situ polymerization

Background Since poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) shows great biocompatibility as well as biodegradability [1] and bacterial cellulose (BC) is a high purity biomaterial with unique structural and mechanical properties, composed of cellulose and water [2,3], both are biopolymers with great potential for biomedical applications. This work had the purpose of producing biocomposites with properties that bring together the interesting BC and PLLA attributes. With these in mind, an in situ polymerization in BC membranes and spheres was made by L-lactic acid polycondensation. The presence of toxic residues in the composite was avoid by not using a catalyst [4] since it was possible to solubilized lactic acid in the BC hydrogel allowing to take advantage of the auto-polymerization property of this acid [1,4]. The characterization of the composite was made by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and cell viability was evaluated by MTS [2,5].