Electrospun Fibre Webs Templated Synthesis of Mineral Scaffolds Based on Calcium Phosphates and Barium Titanate

Abstract

The current work focuses on the development of mineral scaffolds with complex composition and controlled morphology by using a polymeric template in the form of nonwoven fibre webs fabricated through electrospinning. By a cross-linking process, gelatine fibres stable in aqueous solutions were achieved, these being further subjected to a loading step with two types of mineral phases: calcium phosphates deposited by chemical reaction and barium titanate nanoparticles as decoration on the previously achieved structures. Thus, hybrid materials were obtained and subsequently processed in terms of freeze-drying and heat treating with the purpose of burning the template and consolidating the mineral part as potential bone implants with improved biological response by external stimulation. The results confirmed the tunable morphology, as well as the considerable applicability of both as-prepared and final samples for the development of medical devices, which encourages the continuation of research in the direction of assessing the synergistic contribution of barium titanate domains polarisation/magnetisation by external applied fields.

Composite Fiber Networks Based on Polycaprolactone and Bioactive Glass-Ceramics for Tissue Engineering Applications

“…As a fabrication technique, electrospinning has lately gained popularity due to the capability of providing tunable building blocks for smart devices developed by all industries [ 6 ]. The resulting fibrous architectures can be employed as three-dimensional porous scaffolds for hard [ 3 , 7 ] or soft [ 8 ] tissues, sacrificial templates [ 9 ], photocatalytic materials [ 10 , 11 ], transparent flexible electrodes [ 12 ], semiconducting elements [ 13 ] or light sources [ 14 ].…”

Pulsed Laser Deposition Derived Bioactive Glass-Ceramic Coatings for Enhancing the Biocompatibility of Scaffolding Materials

“…In the first set of curves, the signals associated with Ca and P became dominant and shielded the contributions of the elements found in the films, highlighting the quantitative development of the apatite layer. The second set of spectra brought similar information, namely, the profiling of new vibrational characteristics, which hid the former succession of bands, characteristics that were linked with (PO 4 ) 3− group, typical of calcium phosphates; more than that, a shoulder could be noticed at approximately 600 cm −1 , a well-known fingerprint of hydroxyapatite (HA) [35,41].…”

Electrospinning Fabrication and Cytocompatibility Investigation of Nanodiamond Particles-Gelatin Fibrous Tubular Scaffolds for Nerve Regeneration

“…Composite fibers were obtained through electrospinning by adapting the fabrication protocol described in [ 25 ]. Briefly, each solution was loaded in a 12.45 mm diameter syringe supplied with a 0.8 internal diameter needle.…”