Development and evaluation of different electroactive poly(vinylidene fluoride) architectures for endothelial cell culture

Abstract

Tissue engineering (TE) aims to develop structures that improve or even replace the biological functions of tissues and organs. Mechanical properties, physical-chemical characteristics, biocompatibility, and biological performance of the materials are essential factors for their applicability in TE. Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) is a thermoplastic polymer that exhibits good mechanical properties, high biocompatibility and excellent thermal properties. However, PVDF structuring, and the corresponding processing methods used for its preparation are known to significantly influence these characteristics.In this study, doctor blade, salt-leaching, and electrospinning processing methods were used to produce PVDF-based structures in the form of films, porous membranes, and fiber scaffolds, respectively. These PVDF scaffolds were subjected to a variety of characterizations and analyses, including physicochemical analysis, contact angle measurement, cytotoxicity assessment and cell proliferation.All prepared PVDF scaffolds are characterized by a mechanical response typical of ductile materials. PVDF films displayed mostly vibration modes for the a-phase, while the remaining PVDF samples were characterized by a higher content of electroactive β-phase due the low temperature solvent evaporation during processing. No significant variations have been observed between the different PVDF membranes with respect to the melting transition. In addition, all analysed PVDF samples present a hydrophobic behavior. On the other hand, cytotoxicity assays confirm that cell viability is maintained independently of the architecture and processing method. Finally, all the PVDF samples promote human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) proliferation, being higher on the PVDF film and electrospun randomly-oriented membranes. These findings demonstrated the importance of PVDF topography on HUVEC behavior, which can be used for the design of vascular implants.

Utilizing the synergistic effect between the Schottky barrier and field redistribution to achieve high-density, low-consumption, cellulose-based flexible dielectric films for next-generation green energy storage capacitors

“…47 the mechanical properties of ZSZ and SZS in our work with some typical cellulose-and PVDF-based 0-3 structured composites. 17,26,27,35,[48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62] According to the summary in the gure, the cellulose-based composites own better tensile strength but inferior elongation at break than the PVDF-based ones, which is because of the strong hydrogen bond in the cellulose molecular chain network. 19,21,63 Here, the ZSZ shows a tensile strength of 139.05 MPa with elongation at break of 39.47%, and the SZS has a lower tensile strength of 133.96 MPa, but a higher elongation at break of 41.40%.…”

Effect of slight structural difference in polyvinylidene fluoride binders on the electrochemical performance of single-crystal LiNi0.5Co0.2Mn0.3O2 cathode

“…1, the paraelectric α PVDF phase and ferroelectric β PVDF phase exhibited infrared absorption peaks at 763 cm −1 and 840 cm −1 , respectively. 25–27 To understand the relative content of these two crystal forms in the different PVDF samples, the crystal forms were analyzed using the Beer–Lambert formula, as follows: 15 F ( β ) = A β /(1.26 × A α + A β )where A α and A β are the absorbance at 840 cm −1 and 763 cm −1 , respectively.…”