Understanding self-accelerated water diffusion within poly-lactic acid via molecular dynamics simulation

Poly-lactic acid(PLA) is widely used as a controlled drug release material and the diffusion property of water within the polymer matrix is closely related to the drug release profile. This paper studies the water diffusion in PLA by molecular dynamic simulations. Free volume analysis indicates that water molecules are expected to fill in the free volumes of the polymer matrix forming water clusters at low water content. Along with the increase of the water concentration, the polymer starts to swell and the density of the system starts to drop.Due to the high mobility of water within water cluster, the calculated diffusion coefficient dramatically increases along with the incensement of water content. Thus, we conclude that the diffusion of water is a self-accelerate process, with higher mobility of water in the case where more water exists.