Self-Powered Well-Aligned P(VDF-TrFE) Piezoelectric Nanofiber Nanogenerator for Modulating an Exact Electrical Stimulation and Enhancing the Proliferation of Preosteoblasts

Abstract

Electric potential plays an indispensable role in tissue engineering and wound healing. Piezoelectric nanogenerators based on direct piezoelectric effects can be self-powered energy sources for electrical stimulation and have attracted extensive attention. However, the accuracy of piezoelectric stimuli on piezoelectric polymers membranes in vitro during the dynamic condition is rarely studied. Here, a self-powered tunable electrical stimulation system for assisting the proliferation of preosteoblasts was achieved by well-aligned P(VDF-TrFE) piezoelectric nanofiber membrane (NFM) both as a nanogenerator (NG) and as a scaffold. The effects of electrospinning and different post-treatments (annealing and poling) on the surface wettability, piezoelectric β phase, ferroelectric properties, and sensing performance of NFMs were evaluated here. The polarized P(VDF-TrFE) NFM offered an enhanced piezoelectric value (d31 of 22.88 pC/N) versus pristine P(VDF-TrFE) NFM (d31 of 0.03 pC/N) and exhibited good sensing performance. The maximum voltage and current output of the P(VDF-TrFE) piezoelectric nanofiber NGs reached −1.7 V and 41.5 nA, respectively. An accurate electrical response was obtained in real time under dynamic mechanical stimulation by immobilizing the NGs on the flexible bottom of the culture plate, thereby restoring the real scene of providing electrical stimulation to the cells in vitro. In addition, we simulated the interaction between the piezoelectric nanofiber NG and cells through an equivalent circuit model. To verify the feasibility of P(VDF-TrFE) nanofiber NGs as an exact electrical stimulation, the effects of different outputs of P(VDF-TrFE) nanofiber NGs on cell proliferation in vitro were compared. The study realized a significant enhancement of preosteoblasts proliferation. This work demonstrated the customizability of P(VDF-TrFE) piezoelectric nanofiber NG for self-powered electrical stimulation system application and suggested its significant potential application for tissue repair and regeneration.

P(VDF-TrFE) nanofibers: structure of the ferroelectric and paraelectric phases through IR and Raman spectroscopies

“…Electrospinning not only represents an effective method to improve the b phase content in uorinated polymers and copolymers, but it also opens to a wide range of nanostructurebased devices. PVDF [65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72] and P(VDF-TrFE) 9,11,34,[37][38][39]52,53,[73][74][75][76][77][78] nanobers also offer the advantages of electrospinning to develop materials with a macroscopic orientation of the polymer chains.…”

Electrospinning Piezoelectric Fibers for Biocompatible Devices

“…The results highlighted that the cells were elongated and oriented along the direction of nanofibers. Electrical poling led to a higher β-phase content of the fiber meshes (69.2%) than annealing (46%) and subsequently higher cell proliferation rate [64] To improve antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties which are important for the piezoelectric and mechanical properties, which in turn enhaced the proliferation and differentiation of osteoblasts (MC3T3-E1) on the scaffold. [61] As a part of the musculoskeletal system, also muscles can be affected by several damages.…”

Piezoelectric/Triboelectric Nanogenerators for Biomedical Applications

“…Nanogenerators can provide electrical stimulation for cells and tissues [60][61][62][63]. A recent report shows that a self-powered well-aligned P(VDF-TrFE) piezoelectric nanofiber nanogenerator can be used as a piezoelectric stimulator for bone tissue engineering, as shown in Figure 4 [35]. The well-aligned piezoelectric P(VDF-TrFE) nanogenerators encouraged the MC3T3 cells to proliferate in vitro under a sustainable piezoelectric stimulus.…”

“…The samples treated by annealing were coded as A-NFM. Reprinted with permission from[35].Copyright, © 1996 Scientists have developed a flexible Pb(In 1/2 Nb 1/2 )O 3 -Pb(Mg 1/3 Nb 2/3 )O 3 -PbTiO 3 (PIMNT) energy harvester that can be used in a self-powered deep brain stimulator[68]. More researches in this field open a new avenue for future deep brain stimulation using self-powered deep brain stimulator.…”