The Preludium grant is provided by the Polish National Science Center (NCN) “Submicron fibrous bioresorbable polymer - reduced graphene oxide nanocomposites produced by the solution blow spinning method” grant number 2018/31/N/ST8/03658
This project involves a novel approach to the fabrication of conductive submicron fibrous polymer mats with a new method of solution blow spinning. The method allows to rapidly produce polymer fibrous mats with average fiber diameters in the range of tens of nanometers to several micrometers, circumventing typical restrictions as to the solvent electrical conductivity and thermal stability of the neat polymer material, thereby presenting a noteworthy alternative to traditional electrospinning and melt-blowing polymer fiber production methods.
Solution blow spinning involves the use of high-pressure gas to form a polymer solution jet, serving both to draw the fiber-forming polymer solution jet and to evaporate the solvent on its way to the fiber collector. The method is up to 30 times more efficient in terms of polymer solution feed and deposition rate than conventional electrospinning and does not require the use of conductive solvents or complex manufacturing system setups. However, it is also relatively new and requires extensive process parameter selection studies to be as easily used for controlled fibrous material fabrication as the above mentioned methods.
The material used was poly ε-caprolactone, a bioresorbable polymer, commonly used for tissue engineering applications. For the purposes of controlled material design process and rapid in-situ deposition of porous polymer fiber mats, the existing scheme was adopted to incorporate the addition of reduced graphene oxide nanoplatelets, as a highly versatile and novel material, showing significant promise for further biomedical applications.
Fundamental research problems, mainly concerning the microstructural characteristics of solution blow spun fibers with the addition of graphene-based material nanoplatelets will be addressed in the project. The resulting properties and their relation to processing parameters and nano-additive content will also be investigated to provide a comprehensive material design and fabrication process, leading to a proposed application in tissue engineering.
The material properties will be analyzed to achieve the aims of the fundamental research and initially assess the application potential of the produced nanocomposite mats as tissue engineering scaffolds. Fiber average diameter, diameter distribution and alignment will be analyzed based on scanning electron microscopy quantitative image analysis. The influence of the nanoadditive content and stretching direction on the mechanical properties of the material will be studied using tensile testing. The dispersion of the nanoadditive, nanoplatelet shape and bonding with the polymer matrix will be assessed using various methods like X-ray scattering, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry and transmission electron microscopy.
Primary assessment of the material’s potential use as a biomedical implant to facilitate tissue regeneration will be performed by in vitro cellular assays, consisting of a cytotoxicity assessment and cell outgrowth studies for chosen samples with distinct morphologies to determine the influence of processing parameters, sample morphology and nano-additive content on the biocompatibility of the designed material.
The project will result in the design of a novel conductive biomaterial with high porosity, tailorable mechanical properties and conductivity, possible to manufacture using a rapid novel method. As the first study on rapid in situ fabrication of graphene-based submicron fibrous conductive nanocomposites, the project may pave the way for the implementation of quick and easy to implement materials engineering methods in everyday clinical practice.
