Electrospinning as a powerful technique for biomedical applications: a critically selected survey

Abstract

Nowadays, electrospinning has become one of the most versatile, easy, and cost-effective techniques to engineer advanced materials used for many applications, especially in the biomedical and environmental areas. Like the numerous patents around the world, the increasing number of papers witnesses the huge potential of this simple process, and many companies have been emerged during the last years to exploit its innumerable applications. This article presents a critically selected overview of polymers that can be used to produce nanofibers, along with the biomedical applications of the resulting electrospun scaffolds. We have focused on about seven natural and synthetic polymers, but many more can be found in the literature, either as their pristine state or as composites with ceramics, metals, and other polymers. The description of some strategies for nanofiber production, and the characterization used to evaluate their optimization, has been discussed. Finally, several polymers have been recognized as highlights for future work.

Electrospinning and electrospraying techniques for designing novel antibacterial poly(3-hydroxybutyrate)/zinc oxide nanofibrous composites

“…Electrospun nanofibrous scaffolds exhibit highly porous structures with fiber diameters suitable to mimic the natural extracellular matrix, thus promoting cell attachment and proliferation [1][2][3][4]. Nonetheless, these morphological features entail a huge inconvenient, namely, the adhesion of pathogenic microorganisms [5][6][7].…”

Commercializing Electrospun Scaffolds For Pluripotent Stem Cell-Based Tissue Engineering Applications

“…Electrospinning has been used for diverse tissue engineering applications in research laboratories [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45]. The technique spins highly charged polymer solutions into nanofibers or microfibers.…”

On the design and properties of scaffolds based on vertically aligned carbon nanotubes transferred onto electrospun poly (lactic acid) fibers

“…Among several advantages, the simplicity, versatility and cost-effectiveness of this technique have attracted much attention from various fields of research. In general, electrospun fibers present high porosity and pore interconnectivity, which are desired properties for applications in many fields, including tissue engineering [3,4], regenerative medicine [3][4][5], wound dressing [6], and drug delivery [6,7].…”