Electrospun Hybrid Nanofibers Doped With Nanoparticles Or Nanotubes for Biomedical Applications

Abstract

Electrospinning is a powerful technique to produce fibers with a diameter ranging from tens of nanometers to several micrometers. Compared with single-component nanofibers, composite or hybrid nanofibers are promising due to the unique properties possessed by both the host and the guest materials. Doping nanoparticles (NPs) or nanotubes (NTs) have excellent optical, mechanical, electrical or catalytic properties within polymer nanofibers, which makes it possible to produce functional nanofibers with promising applications. In this review, followed by a brief introduction of basic theory of electrospinning techniques, we give a literature survey of the NP- or NT-doped electrospun polymer nanofibers in terms of the producing methods and potential applications in the fields of tissue engineering, wound dressing and drug-delivery systems. Some of the aspects related to the improved protein adsorption capability, mechanical durability and, thus, improved cell attachment and proliferation of the NT-doped polymer nanofibers, as well as the significantly decreased burst-release profile of the NT-doped polymer nanofibers used as drug-delivery systems are discussed.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work is financially supported by ‘111 Project‘, B07024, the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University, State Education Ministry, the Science and Technology Collaboration Fund between China and Hungary (No. 5–14), Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (M Shen and X Shi). S Wang thanks the Innovation Funds of Donghua University Doctorate Dissertation of Excellence (BC201107). X Shi gratefully acknowledges the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) and Santander bank for the Invited Chair in Nanotechnology. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.