Pyridine as an additive to improve the deposition of continuous electrospun filaments.

Antonina A Lach,Andrew J Carr,Hayley L Morris,Pierre-Alexis Mouthuy,Edward T Stace,Joana A Martins,Maria H Ribeiro

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0214419

Antonina A Lach, Andrew J Carr + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214419

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Journal: PloS one	Publication Date: Apr 25, 2019
Citations: 9	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital

Abstract

Electrospun filaments are leading to a new generation of medical yarns that have the ability to enhance tissue healing through their biophysical cues. We have recently developed a technology to fabricate continuous electrospun filaments by depositing the submicron fibres onto a thin wire. Here we investigate the influence of pyridine on the fibre deposition. We have added pyridine to polydioxanone solutions at concentrations ranging from 0 to 100 ppm, increasing the conductivity of the solutions almost linearly from 0.04 uS/cm to 7 uS/cm. Following electrospinning, this led to deposition length increasing from 1 cm to 14 cm. The samples containing pyridine easily underwent cold drawing. The strength of drawn filaments increased from 0.8 N to 1.5 N and this corresponded to a decrease in fibre diameter, with values dropping from 2.7 μm to 1 μm. Overall, these findings are useful to increase the reliability of the manufacturing process of continuous electrospun filaments and to vary their biophysical properties required for their application as medical yarns such as surgical sutures.

Highlights

Surgical sutures are one of the most successful biomaterials-based medical devices used today, with a market currently exceeding $1.3 billion (USD) annually [1]
The deposition length obtained from the control solution was below 1 cm and increased progressively across all concentrations, from 6 cm at 1 ppm up to 14 cm at 100 ppm (Fig 3B)
The aim of this study was to improve the reliability of continuous electrospun filament fabrication by increasing the deposition length of the filament on the wire collector

Summary

Introduction

Surgical sutures are one of the most successful biomaterials-based medical devices used today, with a market currently exceeding $1.3 billion (USD) annually [1]. Most modern sutures are made of synthetic polymers that are either degradable (e.g. polydioxanone—PDO) or non-degradable (e.g. polypropylene) [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Melt spinning and extrusion are typically used for processing synthetic polymers into filaments. Mechanical performance has always been a primary focus, the repair of some tissues could benefit from sutures that actively contribute to the healing process. This is important for tissues with poor repair ability such as tendon and ligaments [9,10,11,12,13,14]

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