Abstract
High‐content keratin/poly (ethylene oxide) (PEO) (90/10) blend nanofibers were prepared by electrospinning combined with a two‐step cross‐linking process. The keratin/PEO aqueous solution was firstly mixed with ethylene glycol diglycidyl ether (EGDE) as cross‐linker and then electrospun into nanofibers. The resulting nanofibrous mats were cross‐linked with EGDE vapor to decrease the solubility of nanofibers in water. The morphologies and properties of electrospun fibers were investigated by SEM, FTIR, TG, XRD, and contact angle testing, respectively. The results showed that the morphologies of nanofibers were uniform at the fiber average diameter of 300 nm with negligible bead defects by adding EGDE to keratin/PEO solutions. The cross‐linking results showed that EGDE vapor could improve the hydrophobic property of blended nanofibers. The crystallinity of the keratin/PEO blend nanofiber mat increased from 13.14% for the uncross‐linked sample to 21.54% and 35.15% for the first cross‐linked and second cross‐linked samples, respectively. Free defect nanofiber mats with high keratin content producing from this two‐step cross‐linking process are particularly promising for tissue engineering and cell‐seeded scaffold.
Highlights
Keratin, as the major protein component of hair, wool, feathers, nails, and horns, belongs to a family of fibrous structural proteins and can be used in a variety of biomedical applications due to its biocompatibility and biodegradability [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
Electrospun nanofibers with negligible bead defects were produced using the cross-linked spinning solution by ethylene glycol diglycidyl ether (EGDE) (see Figure 2(b)), suggesting that EGDE could improve the spinnability of high content keratin solution
Weight loss analysis of nanofiber mats suggests that the lower temperature of denaturation/melting of a-keratin crystallites structure was shifted to the higher temperature after crosslinking treatment, suggesting that EGDE cross-link treatment can improve the thermal property of the keratin/PEO blend nanofiber mat
Summary
As the major protein component of hair, wool, feathers, nails, and horns, belongs to a family of fibrous structural proteins and can be used in a variety of biomedical applications due to its biocompatibility and biodegradability [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. The structure and fiber distribution of the mats can be controlled to provide them with necessary mechanical property and induction during the cell culture process [12] Due to their excellent properties, a handful of research groups have tried to create keratin fibrous matrices through electrospinning technology [13,14,15,16]. Comparing with water as spinning solvent, organic reagent as solvent is not environmental friendly and not economic Another problem to be solved for making biomedical keratin/PEO blend nanofiber mat is that the blend nanofiber mats are to be dissolved in water because of the water solubility of keratin and PEO. A high keratin content keratin/PEO (90/10) blend nanofiber mat was fabricated by electrospinning using aqueous solution after cross-linking treatment with ethylene glycol diglycidyl ether (EGDE). The properties of nanofibers were investigated by SEM, FTIR, TG, and a video optics contact angle apparatus
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