Fabrication and Characterization of Electrospun Membranes Based on “Poly(ε-caprolactone)”, “Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate)” and Their Blend for Tunable Drug Delivery of Curcumin

Abstract

Membranes based on poly(ε-caprolactone)/poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) blends (PCL/PHB at 50 wt%) were obtained by electrospinning and curcumin encapsulated at 1 wt% as active agent, as drug delivery systems for biomedical applications. PCL and PHB were also separately electrospinned and loaded with 1 wt% of curcumin. The processing parameters of PHB were drastically different from PCL and the blend PCL/PHB; in fact, the temperature used was 40 °C, and the distance injector–collector was 28 cm. Different conditions were used for PCL: lower temperature (i.e., 25 °C) and shorter distance injector–collector (i.e., 18 cm). The blend was processed in the same conditions of PCL. The fibers obtained with PHB showed diameters in the order of magnitude of micron (i.e., ≈ 3.45 µm), while the PCL mats is composed of fiber of nanometric dimensions (i.e., ≈ 340 nm). PCL/PHB blend allowed to obtain nanometric fibers (i.e., ≈520 nm). Same trend of results was obtained for the fibers’ porosity. The morphology, thermal, mechanical and barrier properties (sorption and diffusion) through water vapor were evaluated on all the electrospun fibers, as well as the release behavior of curcumin, and correlated to the processing parameter and the fibers’ morphologies.

Weibull Modeling of Controlled Drug Release from Ag-PMA Nanosystems

“…Further, to increase drug collection/release efficiency in a nanofiber system, controlled wetting properties are desirable [ 18 ]. Thus, fiber systems are employed to reach both immediate and controlled drug release processes [ 19 , 20 ].…”

Electrospun Poly(ethylene Terephthalate)/Silk Fibroin Composite for Filtration Application

“…Electrospun products have already been studied for many applications such as wound healing [ 12 , 13 ], tissue engineering [ 14 , 15 ], drug-releasing and drug target delivery systems [ 16 , 17 ], sensors [ 18 , 19 ], membranes [ 20 , 21 ], batteries [ 22 , 23 ], solar cells [ 24 , 25 ], catalysts [ 26 , 27 ], protecting clothing [ 28 , 29 ], separation [ 30 ], decommissioning [ 31 ], and environmental remediation [ 32 ]. However, the randomly arranged ultrafine fibers in the electrospun membranes, the high surface area to volume ratios, nano-porosity, good mechanical properties, and vapor permeability of such membranes pre-destined them for filtration membranes and especially for personal protection as face masks against very fine dirt and bacteria, but also viruses with dimensions of about 100 nm [ 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 ].…”

Electromagnetically Stimuli-Responsive Nanoparticles-Based Systems for Biomedical Applications: Recent Advances and Future Perspectives

“…Among all the existent processes able to produce nanofibers (NFs), electrospinning is probably the most interesting for biomedical applications. In the electrospinning process, the polymeric solution is fed to the injector, and in exploiting the electric field generated between the injector and the collector, the generated stresses go to thin the polymeric jet, reducing the dimension of the produced fibers [ 153 , 154 ]. Moreover, it is possible to produce NFs of very different materials with very different properties.…”