Effects of solvents on electrospun fibers and the biological application of different hydrophilic electrospun mats

It is reported that low volatile solvent could slow down the rate of solvent volatilization during the electrospinning process and hydrophobic biomaterials were easily to form branching fiber, which would be used as a potential biomaterial as wound dressing because of its bacterial barrier property. In this work, silver ion (Ag+) was used as the anti-bacterial components to explore the effect of N, N-dimethylformamide (DMF) as a fiber differentiation inducer on hydrophilic materials-Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and Eudragit L-100 during the electrospinning. The results of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) confirmed that DMF could reduce the diameter of electrospun fibers and increased crystallinity of the electrospun fibers. The results of water absorption test, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and in vitro antibacterial activity showed that comparing with cotton non-woven fabric, gauze and cotton, the fiber with strong water absorption could load more silver ions and had stronger inhibitory properties against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Escherichia coli (E. coli). CCK-8 assay showed that the cytotoxicity of DMF induced hydrophilic material electrospun fibers and their silver loaded electrospun fibers were all above 90%, which suggested that the fibers could be developed for clinical application. This work could provide an opportunity for improving the properties of electrospun fibers which have potential to be applied as wound dressings.