Abstract
Chitosan is a biopolymer with great interest in biomedical applications but one of its disadvantages is unsoluble in water. Caroxymethyl chitosan (CmCHT )1 is water soluble chitosan derivative. CHT is susceptible to enzymatic degradation, in particular to lisozyme solutions but degradation kinetics is really slow.
Poly (Ɛ-caprolactone) PCL is a polyester, hydrophobic and semicrystalline polymer that degrades slowly by hydrolysis due to the relatively small fraction of ester groups in the main chain and the difficulty of water molecules to reach polymer chains because of hydrophobycity and high crystallinity. Degradation2 by enzymes such as lipoprotein lipase is much faster. It is well known that chitosan can be cross-linked with dialdhyde molecules of synthetic or natural origin such as glutaraldehyde or genipin to form polysacharide networks. The aldehyde endcapped polycaprolactone, aPCL was synthesized to crosslinked with amine (NH2) groups of CmCHT ,obtainning a hybrid polymer network with a good kinetic degradation in aquous and enzymatic media.
