Synthesis, Morphological Structures, and Material Characterization of Electrospun PLA:PCL/Magnetic Nanoparticle Composites for Drug Delivery

Abstract

The effects of pure and impure magnetic nanoparticles (MPs) with three different concentrations (0.01, 0.1, and 1 wt %/v) on the morphological structure, crystallinity level, thermal properties and constituent interactions of electrospun poly(lactic acid) (PLA): poly(ε‐caprolactone) (PCL)‐based composites were investigated by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X‐ray diffraction (XRD), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), gel permeation chromatography (GPC), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and drug release tests using UV–vis spectrophotometry. Tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH), as a typical therapeutic compound, was loaded into these composite fibrous structures to study their application for drug delivery. The infrared spectra of composite nanofibers confirm the successful embedding of MPs into the fibrous networks. The addition of pure MPs increased the solution viscosity and thus promoted the MP dispersion inside the electrospun composite fiber mats. Impure MPs led to considerably lower average fiber diameters, and could generate unique cell structures that were reported for the first time in this study. The accelerated release of TCH was found by adding pure MPs to PLA:PCL blends. This characteristic was reflected in the parameters of Ritger‐Peppas and Zeng models, which were well fitted to our experimental drug release data. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2013, 51, 1607–1617

Poly(lactic acid) blends in biomedical applications

“…Recently, PLA/ poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide)-co-acrylamide blend hydrogels with silver nanoparticles were developed by Prabhakar et al [129], PLA blends have also been explored for film [131][132][133][134] and nanofiber [88,[135][136][137] Recently, gene therapy has emerged as a field with high research activity. PLA has been explored in gene transfection applications after subjection to synthetic modification.…”

Polylactic acid: synthesis and biomedical applications

“…PLA blends have also been explored for film (Kenawy et al ; Boonkong et al )‐ and nanofibre (Haroosh et al ; Haroosh et al )‐based drug delivery approaches. Liu et al () investigated the effect of blending ethylene‐vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA) with PLA to develop paclitaxel‐eluting stent coatings, where the rate and amount of drug release can be modulated by varying the amount of PLA in the blend.…”

Polylactic acid (PLA)/halloysite nanotube (HNT) composite mats: Influence of HNT content and modification

“…With the evaporation of solvents during electrospinning, fibrous structures are collected onto a ground collector or rotating mandrel to form non-woven mats with very large surfaceto-volume ratios. Electrospun fibre mats are widely used in the fields of tissue engineering [2], wound healing [3], drug delivery [4][5][6], electronics [7] and air filtration [8].…”