受惠於材料科學與製造科技的發展，聚乳酸(Poly(lactic acid), PLA)及其成品具有高生物相容性，可應用在生物體內；隨著時間的增加，聚乳酸可以被身體吸收並代謝，無須經過二次的手術取出，使其在生物醫學上有重大的突破，但聚乳酸除了上述的優點，尚有潛在的隱憂，如:生物體各部位復原速率的不同，加上需考量患者的代謝速度，倘若患者身體尚未復原前，聚乳酸已經在體內代謝完畢，不但失去原有的支撐與填補缺陷的能力，後續還需要接受額外的重建手術。近年來白蠟(Paraffin wax)製成的支架，應用於導引細胞的流動方向研究與培養，其效果顯著，也無生物相斥性的反應。雖然聚乳酸與白蠟都具有生物相容的特性，但各自的物理化學性質、親水性和降解速率都不同，因此，本研究主要目的是以研究白蠟聚乳酸複合材料，探討其射出成形材料延性、拉伸強度、加工性能改善以及生物可分解性之試驗。
第一個研究，藉由不同的混鍊方式將聚乳酸與三種不同比例的白蠟混合，量測其流變性質、結晶行為、熱穩定性、機械性質與拉伸斷裂後的形貌，探討不同混鍊方式與白蠟比例的影響。其結果與傳統擠出製程相比，添加白蠟後的聚乳酸，其斷裂伸長率得到大幅改善，發泡擠出的試片也有較均勻的相分佈。同時，其混合物的分散性、機械性能、熱穩定性及材料特性上都有傑出的表現。然而白蠟能有效改善聚乳酸的延展性與流動性，卻與PLA並不相容；且白蠟熔點約在55 °C，在後續加工或是應用上受到限制。有相關文獻指出，90% 線性低密度聚乙烯(Linear Low Density Polyethylene, LLDPE) 與10% 白蠟之相容性最高。因此，接下來的第二個研究為，藉由線性低密度聚乙烯的熔點(123 °C)性質，使添加線性低密度聚乙烯後的聚乳酸/白蠟混合物的熱穩定性、加工性和機械性能有所提升，藉此改善白蠟的加工限制。最後本文的第三個研究，觀察聚乳酸/白蠟混合物在不同溼度與溫度下的降解速度。在水解過程中，水在高分子內扮演著塑化劑角色，誘發隨機斷鏈；高分子之酯鍵在斷裂的同時，會產生羧基與羥基，進而加速材料內部的降解速度。在計算有關降解速率的數學模型中，將催化與非催化的反應一併考量入內。最後，由實驗數據得知，白蠟不但能有效降低水對聚乳酸材料的破壞性滲透，降低其降解速率外，含有白蠟的聚乳酸試片在降解一段時間後，仍保有一定的機械性質及較佳的表面形貌。因聚乳酸白蠟之複材仍保有生物相容性，未來可應用在組織工程(Tissue Engineering)上，做細胞培養與體內降解之研究。

Nowadays, Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) is a popular material in biomedical science. It is a biodegradable, bioresorbable, bioerodible, and bioabsorbable material in vivo. However, if the degradation rate of the polymer is too fast, not only will it cease to provide the necessary mechanical support for the tissue, the surrounding tissue cannot eliminate the acid by-products, resulting in an inflammatory or toxic response. Recently, paraffin wax (PW) is printed as cell pattern to guide cell proliferation and the biocompatibility is quite significant.
Therefore, this study aims to develop PLA/PW blends to investigate the ductility, tensile strength, processiblity of PLA/PW blends and the hydrolytic degradation of microinjection molding samples.
There are three parts in this study, in the first study, investigating PLA/PW blends with different amounts of PW. To observe the effects of the different melt compounding processes and the effects of paraffin wax added to the blends, the thermal behavior, mechanical performance and morphology have been charac¬terized. The results show that the addition of paraffin wax yields tre¬men¬dous improvements in elongation com¬pared to neat PLA. In addition, samples made by the sub-critical gas-assisted processing (SGAP) extru¬sion method exhibit more homogeneous phase morphologies and also improved paraffin wax dispersion, better tensile properties and thermal stability, and more con¬sistent material properties as compared to their conventionally compounded counterparts. However, PLA and PW are immiscible, thus the low melting temperature of PW (at around 55 °C) poses some processing difficulties and/or practical application limitations for the PLA/PW blends. Linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) and PW exhibit miscibility at a 90%/10% weight ratio and a melting temperature of 123 °C. Hence, in the second study, LLDPE was added to the PLA/PW blends to increase their thermal stability, processability, and elongation-at-break. The third study tested the hydrolytic rate of neat PLA and PLA/PW blends at elevated temperature and relative humidity (RH). During hydrolytic degradation, the plasticizer effect of water in the polymer matrix cause random chain scission, leading to the breakage of ester links. Meanwhile, the ester groups generate carboxyl end-groups that increase the hydrolytic degradation in the polymer matrix. The results reveal that paraffin wax is able to resist the water permeability and obtain a lower hydrolysis rate than neat PLA. PLA/PW blend still belongs to biodegradable and biocompatible materials. For future works, it can apply in tissue engineering to do cell culture and investigate the degradation test in vivo.

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