A Versatile Disorder-to-Order Technology to Upgrade Polymers into High-Performance Bioinspired Materials.

Biodegradable polymer as traditional material has been widely used in the medical and tissue engineering fields, but there is a great limitation as to the inferior mechanical performance for repairing load-bearing tissues. Thus, it is highly desirable to develop a novel technology to fabricate high-performance biodegradable polymers. Herein, inspired by the bone's superstructure, we proposed a Versatile Disorder-to-Order Technology (VDOT) to manufacture a high-strength and high-elastic modulus stereo-composite self-reinforced polymer fiber. The mean tensile strength (336.1 MPa) and elastic modulus (4.1 GPa) of the self-reinforced polylactic acid (PLA) fiber were 5.2 and 2.1 times their counterparts of the traditional PLA fiber prepared by the existing spinning method, respectively. Moreover, the polymer fibers had the best ability of strength retention during degradation. Interestingly, the fiber tensile strength was even higher than those of bone (200 MPa) and some medical metals (e.g., Al and Mg). Based on all-polymeric raw materials, the VDOT endows bioinspired polymers with improved strength, elastic modulus and degradation-controlled mechanical maintenance, making it a versatile update technology for the massive industrial production of high-performance biomedical polymers. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.