Pure chitosan microfibres for biomedical applications

Abstract

Due to its excellent biocompatibility, Chitosan is a very promising material for degradable products in biomedical applications. The development of pure chitosan microfibre yarn with defined size and directional alignment has always remained a critical research objective. Only fibres of consistent quality can be manufactured into textile structures, such as nonwovens and knitted or woven fabrics. In an adapted, industrial scale wet spinning process, chitosan fibres can now be manufactured at the Institute of Textile Machinery and High Performance Material Technology at TU Dresden (ITM). The dissolving system, coagulation bath, washing bath and heating/drying were optimised in order to obtain pure chitosan fibres that possess an adequate tenacity. A high polymer concentration of 8.0–8.5% wt. is realised by regulating the dope-container temperature. The mechanical tests show that the fibres present very high average tensile force up to 34.3 N, tenacity up to 24.9 cN/tex and Young’s modulus up to 20.6 GPa, values much stronger than that of the most reported chitosan fibres. The fibres were processed into 3D nonwoven structures and stable knitted and woven textile fabrics. The mechanical properties of the fibres and fabrics enable its usage as textile scaffolds in regenerative medicine. Due to the osteoconductive properties of chitosan, promising fields of application include cartilage and bone tissue engineering.

Pure Chitosan-Based Fibers Manufactured by a Wet Spinning Lab-Scale Process Using Ionic Liquids

“…In addition, the viscosity shows a strong dependence on the concentration of the spinning solutions, which increases significantly with higher solids content. Shear rates of about 1 s −1 represent the range close to the spinning process on an industrial spinning plant [ 42 ]. At this point spinning dopes of CHS-02 show relatively low viscosities, primarily due to the low molecular mass.…”

Isotropic and Anisotropic Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering: Collagen, Conventional, and Textile Fabrication Technologies and Properties

“…The solubility of chitosan is based on a protonation of the amino groups. The extruded chitosan threads are precipitated into continuous filaments within an alkaline coagulation bath (e.g., by sodium hydroxide) for wet spinning [165][166][167] and within an alkaline ammonia gas phase for dry spinning [168] by deprotonating the amino groups of the chitosan. To improve the mechanical characteristics of chitosan yarns, spinning solutions can be prepared using ionic liquids [169] and incorporating additives such as chitin [170] and nanocellulose particles [171].…”

Chitin/Chitosan: Versatile Ecological, Industrial, and Biomedical Applications

“…Plasma treatment was applied to improve adhesion by increased cross-linking between the two fiber systems imparting subsequent durability (Nawalakhe et al 2015). Pure chitosan microfibers produced by wet spinning process was aimed for possible stable 3-D scaffold woven or nonwoven textile fabrics to be used in regenerative medicine such as bone and cartilage engineering (Toskas et al 2013). Lam et al (2018) examined a blend of chitin fibrils with cotton jersey fabric and showed reduced rigidity that may provide comfort to patients with epidermolysis bullosa skin disease.…”