Polymer/Biodegradable Biopolymer Nanofibers, Nanotubes and Nonwovens and their Biomedical Applications
Prof. Alex Yarin (Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago, USA)

An overview of the following four topics will be given:

(i) Macroscopically long straight carbon nanotubes produced using electrospinning are used to polymerize sufficiently monodisperse thermo-responsive poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) nanoparticles of the order of 400 nm diameter at the rate of 107 particles/s. During their formation, the nanoparticles are loaded with fluorescent dye model drug. The release kinetics from the nanoparticles is studied experimentally and theoretically under the conditions of thermal stimulation, and thermo-responsive release is demonstrated.

(ii) Convective release from nanotubes and desorption-driven release from nanofibers are discussed next, including release from thermo-responsive and pH-responsive nanofibers and nanofibers with embedded “nano-raisins”.

(iii) Oriented nanofiber mats are used as templates for human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs): engineering the superficial zone of articular cartilage.

(iv) Solution blowing of soy protein/polymer blends is used to form monolithic and core-shell nanofibers with high content of biodegradable soy protein. These nanofibers hold great potential in various applications of nonwovens and packaging materials.