| AVS 65th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Biomaterial Interfaces Division | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session BI+AS+IPF+NS-TuA |
| Session: | IoT Session: Biofabrication, Bioanalytics, Biosensors and Diagnostics and Flash Networking Session |
| Presenter: | P.H. Lin, National Yang Ming University, Taiwan, Republic of China |
| Authors: | C. Li, National Yang Ming University, Taiwan, Republic of China J.H. Hsieh, Ming Chi University of Technology, Taiwan, Republic of China P. Lin, National Yang Ming University, Taiwan, Republic of China |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Polylactic acid (PLA, [C3H4O2]n, CAS 26161-42-2) is a biodegradable and thermoplastic polymer. PLA is naturally produced and can be extracted from many plants such as sugarcane, cornstarch or cassava roots. Typical industrial production processes for PLA are direct condensation of lactic acid monomers (~100°C - 160°C) and ring-opening polymerization of lactide with metal catalysts. For applications in bulk forms, PLA can be produced by extrusion, casting, injection molding and spin coating or even 3d printing.
In cell and tissue engineering applications, amino acids are essential ingredients for cell-tissue culture, implants/replacements, drugs and treatment tests. There are twenty amino acids appearing in human genetic codes by triplet codons and usually categorized according to their polarity, acidity/basicity.
In this study, we fabricate nanofibers by electrospinning on a spin-coated PLA film. This specially designed combination of PLA films and nanofibers is meant to have enduring interfacial adhesion between the two for biomedical applications such as implants. Both PLA nanofibers and films are mixed with selected amino acids. Five amino acids were chosen: tryptophan (Trp, ), methionine (Met, ), serine (Ser, ), glutamate (Glu, ) and arginine (Arg, ). The selection is based on the different electrical polarity of each amino acid. The electrical polarity has profound effects on the solubility, pH acidity of amino acids in water and many other associated biochemical functions. These amino acids are representatives of certain biochemical features for potentially different influences in our applications for cell culture.
The electrospinning process is controlled by several parameters such as the voltage of power supply, feeding velocity of polymer solution through the syringe pump, electrical field strength and distance to the collection plate of nanofibers. Different combinations of these parameters are studied to determine an optimal control for fiber formation. Properties of and microstructures of deposited films and nanofibers are investigated as following: thickness and deposition rate by surface profilometer; microstructures by Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR); surface morphology by scanning electron microscope (SEM); optical properties by UV-Visible-IR spectrometer and wettability by the contact angle.