Morphological evaluation of electrospun polycaprolactone fibers depending on the type of solvent

ABSTRACT Recently, tissue engineering strategies for wound and burn treatment focuses on the use of nanostructures biomaterials capable of facilitating skin regeneration and wound healing. One of the processes used to obtain this type of biomaterial is electrospinning. This process allows to producing films composed of polymeric nanofibers from a polymeric solution and thus, mimics the skin extracellular matrix. Among the most commonly used polymers, polycaprolactone (PCL) can be highlighted due to its solubility in several types of solvents. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of electrical conductivity of different solvents on morphology of electrospun PCL fibers. The influence of molar mass and viscosity of solution as well as flow rate and voltage was also investigated. Acetic acid (AC), formic acid (AF), chloroform (CLO), dichloromethane (DCM) and dimethylformamide (DMF) were used as solvents. Fibers with uniform diameters and defect-free, such as beads, were obtained using the DCM:DMF 70:30 (m/m) solvent system. In spite of decreasing PCL molar mass during processing, this solvent system presented the best results for PCL electrospinning. Electrical conductivity directly influenced all studied variables. When solvent systems with higher electrical conductivity value were used, lower voltage was necessary to produce defect-free fibers.