Research Article In Vitro Degradation of PHB/Bacterial Cellulose Biocomposite Scaffolds Maria Râpă, 1 Cătălin Zaharia , 2 Paul Octavian Stănescu, 2 Angela Cășărică, 3 Ecaterina Matei, 1 Andra Mihaela Predescu, 1 Mircea Cristian Pantilimon, 1 Ruxandra Vidu, 1,4 Cristian Predescu, 1 and Horia Cioflan 5 1 University Politehnica of Bucharest, Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, 313 Splaiul Independentei, 060042 Bucharest, Romania 2 University Politehnica of Bucharest, Advanced Polymer Materials Group, 1-7 Gh. Polizu Str., 011061 Bucharest, Romania 3 National Chemical-Pharmaceutical for Research and Development Institute, Vitan Avenue, No. 112, District 3, Bucharest, Romania 4 University of California Davis, Department of Electrical Engineering, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA 5 Sanador Clinic Hospital, Sevastopol Street No. 9 Sector 1, Bucharest, Romania Correspondence should be addressed to Cătălin Zaharia; zaharia.catalin@gmail.com Received 20 June 2021; Accepted 17 September 2021; Published 6 October 2021 Academic Editor: Domenico Acierno Copyright © 2021 Maria Râpă et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The present work reported the preparation of biocomposites based on poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB), plasticizer, and bacterial cellulose (BC) by melt processing and their testing by means of thermal properties (DSC), water absorption, and in vitro degradation. The surface of the biocomposites was analyzed via atomic force microscopy (AFM). In vitro degradation of the biocomposites was evaluated by weight loss and thermal properties (DSC) assessment after the immersion of the specimens in phosphate-buffered saline solution (PBS of pH 7.4) over 20 days. The results showed that the BC can reduce the PHB crystallinity and promote its degradation under PBS medium. Moreover, it was found that the water absorption increased as the percentage of BC increased. 1. Introduction Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) is a bacterial polyester pro- duced as an intracellular energy storage material under growth conditions characterized by a good biocompatibility and biodegradability. It has a similar degree of crystallinity, glass transition temperature, melting temperature, Young’s modulus, and tensile strength as polypropylene (PP). In addition, PHB is not toxic for the cells [1], in part due to the fact that it degrades in vivo to 3-hydroxybutyric acid, which is a common metabolite that occurs in living organ- isms [2]. However, PHB alone does not fulfill all technical specifications for use as a biomaterial in medical and tissue-engineering applications and has low melt elasticity and a narrow thermal processing window [3], which is due to its high crystallinity and high melting temperature of the crystalline domains. As a consequence, mixing PHB with other polymers and additives is a good strategy to obtain the desired properties. It was found that the reinforcement of PHA with cellulosic fibers gives the polymer composite good mechanical properties (stiffness, strength, and toughness) as well as a low cost [4–6]. Bacterial cellulose (BC) is mainly produced by Gram- negative bacteria of the Gluconacetobacter genus [7]. It is a highly flexible biomaterial used to treat chronic wounds and burns, such as artificial skin or wound dressings, to obtain artificial vessels and scaffolds for tissue engineering [8, 9]. BC differs from plant cellulose by high purity, crystal- linity, degree of polymerization, tensile strength [10, 11], and high water-absorbing capacity [12]. In a previous paper, we reported the good biocompatibility of poly(3-hydroxybuty- rate) and poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) Hindawi International Journal of Polymer Science Volume 2021, Article ID 3820364, 8 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/3820364