Fabrication of chitosan based nanofibrous scaffold using free surface electrospinning for tissue engineering application

Abstract

Tissue engineering offers a promising approach for repair of defective tissues and organs. Developing scaffold from a variety of polymer blends or composites allow adjusting the properties desired for mimicking required disinformity. In recent years, considerable attention has been given to develop chitosan based biomaterials for their applications in the field of tissue engineering due to its minimal foreign body reactions, an intrinsic antibacterial nature, biocompatibility, biodegradability, and the ability to be molded into various geometries and forms such as porous structures that are suitable for cell ingrowth and osteoconduction. The present work involves the preparation of nanofibrous mat from chitosan blended with other biopolymers such as silk fibroin, poly-vinyl alcohol and polyethylene oxide by free surface electrospinning method. The morphology and functional characterization of the developed scaffolds were performed by SEM and FTIR studies. The average fiber diameter of 269nm and 122nm were obtained with chitosan/polyvinyl alcohol and chitosan/silk fibroin, poly ethylene oxide blends respectively. Crystalline nature of the scaffolds was confirmed by XRD studies. The scaffolds are also shown to have desired biodegradable and biocompatible properties. Chitosan based polymeric scaffolds are thus proved to be potential materials for tissue engineering applications.