Lisa Biendl

Chitosan is a biopolymer with attractive biological properties such as biocompatibility and biodegradability [1]. Due to the chelation of chitosan with copper (II), copper-chitosan complexes are formed. These complexes can be used as antibiotic-free antibacterial biomaterials in medical and pharmaceutical applications such as scaffolds for tissue engineering or coatings [2]. The aim of this thesis is to fabricate composite scaffolds based on copper-chitosan complexes incorporating second phases, by using freeze drying technique. Films will be used as control for the porous scaffolds. Morphological, chemical and mechanical characterization of the obtained scaffolds and films will be performed.

[1] Mekahlia, S.; Bouzid, B. (2009): Chitosan-Copper (II) complex as antibacterial agent: synthesis, characterization and coordinating bond- activity correlation study. In: /Physics Procedia /doi.org. 10.1016/j.phpro.2009.11.061

[2] Gritsch, Lukas; Lovell, Christopher; Goldmann, Wolfgang H.; Boccaccini, Aldo R. (2018): Fabrication and characterization of copper(II)-chitosan complexes as antibiotic-free antibacterial biomaterial. In: /Carbohydrate polymers /179, 370–378. DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2017.09.095