Abstract
Porous scaffolds made of biocompatible and environmental-friendly polymer fibers with diameters in the nano/micro range can find applications in a wide variety of sectors, spanning from the biomedical field to textiles and so on. Their development has received a boost in the last decades thanks to advances in the production methods, such as the electrospinning technique. Conferring antimicrobial properties to these fibrous structures is a primary requirement for many of their applications, but the addition of antimicrobial agents by wet methods can present a series of drawbacks. In this work, strong antibacterial action is successfully provided to electrospun polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffolds by silver (Ag) addition through a simple and flexible way, namely the sputtering deposition of silver onto the PCL fibers. SEM-EDS analyses demonstrate that the polymer fibers get coated by Ag nanoparticles without undergoing any alteration of their morphological integrity upon the deposition process. The influence on wettability is evaluated with polar (water) and non-polar (diiodomethane) liquids, evidencing that this coating method allows preserving the hydrophobic character of the PCL polymer. Excellent antibacterial action (reduction > 99.995% in 4 h) is demonstrated against Escherichia coli. The easy fabrication of these PCL-Ag mats can be applicable to the production of biomedical devices, bioremediation and antifouling systems in filtration, personal protective equipment (PPE), food packaging materials, etc.
Highlights
In the last decade, the development of the electrospinning technique has enabled the fabrication of an unprecedented variety of fibrous scaffolds from synthetic and natural materials
The results presented hereafter demonstrate the production of PCL-Ag mats through an easy, flexible and effective way, avoiding the disadvantages affecting other methods described above, with possible applications in biomedical devices, food packaging, and sustainability applications like bioremediation and antifouling coatings in filtration
In this work we proposed the preparation of antibacterial mats through deposition of Ag NPs by sputtering silver onto the surface of electrospun PCL scaffolds
Summary
The development of the electrospinning technique has enabled the fabrication of an unprecedented variety of fibrous scaffolds from synthetic and natural materials. Electrospinning is a polymer processing technique of primary interest in scaffold fabrication due to its ability to seamlessly produce fibers with diameters in the range from micrometers down to tens of nanometers, high surface area to volume ratio structure, high porosity and capability to mimic the extracellular matrix (ECM), needful requirements in several applications such as medicine, filtration, textiles, etc. PCL-derived materials have no antimicrobial properties, unless further functionalized, for example with silver. Ag-functionalized PCL films are usually produced from a starting solution containing both Ag NPs and PCL mixed together, which is processed by casting [10,11] or electrospinning [12,13,14] methods. Starting from a mixed blend of PCL and Ag, only a limited amount of silver is directly exposed on the fiber surfaces and it is not possible to achieve selective functionalization of some desired portions of the membrane only
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