Reinforcing Mechanical Strength of Electrospun Chitosan Nanofibrous Scaffold Using Cellulose Nanofibers

Abstract

In this study, cellulose nanofibers (CNF) was used as a reinforcing material to improve mechanichal strenght of chitosan nanofibrous scaffold. Chitosan scaffolds with different amount of CNF ranging 5.0-20.0 Wt.% were fabricated by adding CNF to chitosan solutions before electrospinning. Both the tensile strength and tensile modulus of the scaffolds were increased as a result of CNF addition. An increase of 4.3 fold (from 2.9±0/02 to 12.7±0/4 MPa) in tensile strength and 4.04 fold (from 86.5±1.7 to 349.5±19.4 P) in Young's modulus were observed after addition of 15 wt. % CNF. The microscopy studies showed that the diameter of the electrospun fibers decreased with the addition of CNF. The diameter decreased from 175± 7 nm to 100±29 nm when 15 wt% CNF were added. Evaluation of cell adhesion by SEM showed that fibroblast cells not only can attachment on the surface of NFC reinforced scaffolds but also can infilterate inside the scaffolds. In addition, the nanocomposite schaffols dose not show any cytotoxic effect using MTT assay.