Bio-based Composites for Tissue Engineering from Tung Oil and Collagen

Collagen has been added to a tung oil-based thermosetting resin in order to enhance its mechanical properties. It has been shown that collagen-reinforced polymers are suitable for applications in the biomedical Industry as materials that help in tissue recovery. The thermosets prepared in this work are made using tung oil, divinylbenzene (DVB), n-butyl methacrylate (BMA), tert-butyl peroxide (TBPO), asolectin and a commercial mixture of collagen types I and III. Samples containing up to 5 wt% of collagen have been successfully prepared and characterized by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). For comparison purpuses, a sample containing 5 wt% of collagen extracted from beef tendons was prepared. An improvement in the mechanical properties of the composites is observed with increasing amounts of collagen