A comparative assessment of poly(vinylidene fluoride)/conducting polymer electrospun nanofiber membranes for biomedical applications

Abstract

Piezoelectric polymers, especially poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) are increasingly receiving interest as smart biomaterials for tissue engineering, energy harvesting, microfluidic, actuator, and biosensor applications. Despite possessing the greatest piezoelectric coefficients among all piezoelectric polymers, it is often desirable to increase the electrical outputs from PVDF for several of these applications. Blending with intrinsically conducting polymers (CP) in the form of nanofiber membranes is one of the facile methods to achieve the same. However, these polymers and their composites have so far been primarily investigated only for their physical property enhancements and in applications like energy storage while their biomedical applications and comparative assessment of their biocompatibility properties have not been yet explored. In this report, electrospinning of PVDF blends with polypyrrole (PPy), polyaniline (PANI), and a modified PANI with l‐glutamic acid (PANI‐LGA/P‐LGA) is performed to obtain different electrically active material membranes. The PVDF:CP composite nanofibers are compared with respect to their nanostructures, β‐phase content, and electrical conductivity. Further, biocompatibility of all the membranes was compared. It was found that incorporation of PPy, PANI, and P‐LGA increased the electrical conductivity of PVDF while the β‐phase content was also substantially enhanced. The highest biocompatibility with a pre‐osteoblast cell line (MC3T3) was exhibited in the order p‐LGA/PVDF > PANI/PVDF > PPy/PVDF, all being significantly higher than PVDF (p < .001). Although P‐LGA/PVDF showed higher electrical conductivity, biocompatibility with MC3T3, it was found to be highly cytotoxic to a HeLa (cancer) cell line. It is concluded that such structure property relations would help in selection of materials for specific biomaterial applications.

Biopolymer Coatings for Biomedical Applications

“…The blending of PVDF with a conducting polymer is a method for increasing electrical output from PVDF. Sengupta et al [47] prepared PVDF blends with various polymers (polypyrrole (PPy), polyaniline (PANI), and a modified PANI with L-glutamic acid (referred to as PANILGA/P-LGA)) to obtain different electrically active membranes. Biocompatibility, electrical conductivity, β-phase content, and the nanostructures formed were analyzed, and biocompatibility was observed to decrease in the following order: p-LGA/PVDF > PANI/PVDF > PPy/PVDF > PVDF.…”

“…** and **** signifies p < 0.01 (1d) and p < 0.0001 (1d), respectively, for both HeLa and MC3T3 culture (1d); #### signifies p < 0.0001 (3d). CP, conducting polymers; PVDF, poly(vinylidene fluoride) (Reprinted with permission from [ 47 ] Copyright (2020), John Wiley and Sons.)…”

Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Surface Treatment of Polymers and Influence on Cell Cultivation

“…This versatility is attributed to the wide spectrum of physical and chemical properties, ease of fabrication with a wide variety of structures that range from simple mats to complex shapes, and biocompatibility. There are many biomedical applications utilizing polymers, for instance, drug delivery vehicles [ 58 , 59 ], tissue engineering scaffolds [ 60 , 61 ], wound dressing [ 62 , 63 , 64 ], and biomedical sensors [ 65 , 66 ]. Although polymers have suitable bulk properties for some biomedical applications, their surface properties are not appropriate.…”

Recent Advances on Conducting Polymers Based Nanogenerators for Energy Harvesting

“…The use of PANI has no effect on the induction of β-phase in PVDF. A series of work on flexible electrospun PVDF/PANI nanofiber based film for piezoelectric nanogenerator have been reported [30,63,68,80,81]. The additional fillers, such as reduced graphene oxide [81], halloysite nanotube [68], graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets [63], and perovskite nanoparticles [30], also have been introduced to the composites to help in the formation of electrically conducting network.…”