Tuning surface texture of electrospun polycaprolactone fibers: Effects of solvent systems and relative humidity
- PDF / 1,299,684 Bytes
- 11 Pages / 584.957 x 782.986 pts Page_size
- 9 Downloads / 172 Views
Tuning surface texture of electrospun polycaprolactone fibers: Effects of solvent systems and relative humidity Murat Şimşek1,a) 1
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Inonu University, Malatya 44280, Turkey Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: [email protected]
a)
Received: 2 September 2019; accepted: 7 January 2020
In this study, the surface morphology of electrospun polycaprolactone (PCL) fibers was investigated. PCL was dissolved in various solvent/nonsolvent systems (acetone/dimethylformamide (DMF), tetrahydrofuran (THF)/ DMF, dichloromethane (DCM)/DMF, chloroform (CF)/DMF, acetone/dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), THF/DMSO, DCM/ DMSO, CF/DMSO) at a fixed ratio of 80/20 v/v. PCL solutions from these solvent systems were electrospun under varying high relative humidity (60–90%), and also room humidity. Characterization of fibers was evaluated by a scanning electron microscope, an atomic force microscope, water contact angle measurements, the Brunauer– Emmett–Teller method, and a strain–stress test. Results revealed that the surface texture of individual fibers changed with the presence of different types of pores and surface roughness depending on both humidity and solvent/nonsolvent properties. Miscibility with water was another factor to be taken into account for understanding mechanisms that contributed to the formation of surface defects. Fibrous materials having such a surface architecture, especially the porous ones, are potential candidates for various applications such as tissue engineering, drug delivery, catalysis, and filtration.
Introduction The electrospinning technology is often used to obtain interconnected nano/micro fiber mats for many applications ranging from medicine to engineering [1, 2, 3, 4]. Electrospun fibers have many advantages such as exceptional surface area to volume ratio, controllable pore structure, high porosity, flexible surface properties, high functionality, and superior mechanical properties. It is possible to obtain nonwoven fibers at various morphologies with this technique. Polycaprolactone (PCL) is a family member of biodegradable aliphatic polyesters which has important use as a biomaterial. As a commercial material, the main attractions of PCL are (i) its approval by the food and drug administration (FDA) for use in humans, (ii) its biodegradability, (iii) its compatibility with a wide range of other polymers, (iv) its good processability, (v) its high thermal stability, and (vi) its relatively low cost [5]. In recent years, great attention has been focused on the synthesis of porous fibers through different phase separation processes for applications in the energy, environmental, and biomedical industries [6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. The remarkable advantage
ª Materials Research Society 2020
of porous fibers over those with a smooth surface is the higher specific surface area to favor cellular behavior in tissue engineering applications [10, 11, 12]. Surface porosity also facilitates the transition of air and nutrients into fibrous mats for the survival of cells inside
Data Loading...
