Electrospinning of Liquefied Banana Stem Residue in Conjugation with Hydroxyapatite Nanocrystals: Towards New Scaffolds for Bone Tissue Engineering

Abstract

Electrospun fibers have high structural similarity to the extracellular matrix (ECM) of natural bone. Some researchers have tried to fabricate cellulose nanofibers using electrospinning method, although the fabricated fibers usually exhibited a non-uniform texture. Moreover, the fabricated mats always suffer from low biological, mechanical and structural properties. Thus, the objective of this study was first to produce a naturally occurring cellulose from banana pseudo-stem through the combination of liquefaction and bleaching processes. The native cellulose was then tried to electrospun in order to determine how a systematic approach based on a Taguchi L9 orthogonal array can be used to fabricate a defect-free fibrous mat. Finally, the electrospun cellulose mats incorporated with hydroxyapatite (HA) nanoparticles were fabricated to generate a new fibrous nanocomposite with enhanced biological and mechanical characteristics. The results revealed that among the electrospinning parameters, cellulose concentration of solution and applied voltage had the greatest effect on the morphology of the fibers. The morphological characterization of the fibrous nanocomposites showed that fibrous cellulose/HA mats had a uniform fiber texture without any significant bead, splashing or particle agglomeration. According to the mechanical tests, the samples containing the higher concentration of HA had a significantly higher elastic modulus and tensile strength. The results obtained from bioactivity analysis indicated an interesting morphological transformation into a flake-like structure which confirmed the high bioactivity of the scaffolds. Accordingly, encapsulation of HA nanoparticles inside the cellulose in the fibrous form can be promising for bone regeneration applications.