High humidity electrospinning of porous fibers for tuning the release of drug delivery systems

Abstract

Surface porosity of individual electrospun polymeric fibers provides interesting means for controlling fiber behavior for different biomedical applications. In this study porous polycaprolactone (PCL) microfibers were obtained by electrospinning of PCL solution in tetrahydrofuran/dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and chloroform/DMSO at high relative humidity (65%). No pores were formed at low relative humidity (19%). Fibers with different surface porosity and fiber diameter revealed different drug release behavior favoring the release from porous microfibers compared to non-porous and nanofibers compared to microfibers. The results suggest that changing humidity during electrospinning without changing drug-polymer-solvent system enables to tune fiber structure and its release behavior.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Drug release
• electrospinning
• microfiber
• nanofiber
• polymeric carrier
• porous fibers

Acknowledgements

Prof K. Kirsimäe, MSc J. Aruväli, MSc H. Priks, MSc F. Elhi and PhD U. Paaver are thanked for XRD and SEM measurements.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no competing financial interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This study is part of the Estonian Research Council funded projects [no PUT1088 and PRG726] (K.K.). L`ORÉAL Baltic “For Women In Science” fellowship 2018 (K.K.) with the support of the Estonian National Commission for UNESCO and the Estonian Academy of Sciences and the L`ORÉAL–UNESCO international program “For Women In Science” is acknowledged.