Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura, Universitat Politècnica de València, Camí de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain.
Biomaterials and Bioengineering Lab, Centro de Investigación Traslacional San Alberto Magno, Universidad Católica de Valencia San Vicente Mártir, c/Guillem de Castro 94, 46001 Valencia, Spain.
Int J Biol Macromol. 2020 May 15;151:499-507. doi: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2020.02.213. Epub 2020 Feb 20.
Alginates are renewable materials with excellent biocompatibility and cost-effectiveness in comparison with other biodegradable polymers. However, these hydrogels have poor mechanical properties that restrict their applications in biomedical fields such as skin tissue engineering. In this regard, the study follows an enhanced engineering route to produce alginate-based films reinforced with different amounts (0, 0.1, 0.5, 1 and 2% w/w) of carbon nanofibers (CNFs) and characterize their physical and biological properties. The results of this study showed that these composites possess similar biological properties to neat alginate hydrogels. Thus, none of the synthesized composite materials were cytotoxic and no cell adhesion was observed on the films. Water sorption at the body temperature did not suffer strong changes with the incorporation of CNFs into the alginate matrix. The dynamic mechanical and tensile/compressive properties of calcium alginate significantly improved with the addition of even a very low amount of CNFs. Thus, the tensile and compression modulus of the calcium alginate films in the dry and hydrated state increases up to three and six times, respectively, with the addition of 2% w/w CNFs. In addition, the composites reinforced with the lowest CNFs content have the advantage of possessing more transparency and lower production costs.
藻酸盐是可再生材料，与其他可生物降解聚合物相比，具有优异的生物相容性和成本效益。然而，这些水凝胶的机械性能较差，限制了它们在生物医学领域的应用，如皮肤组织工程。在这方面，该研究采用了增强工程路线来生产基于藻酸盐的薄膜，其中加入了不同量（0、0.1、0.5、1 和 2%w/w）的碳纳米纤维（CNF），并对其物理和生物特性进行了表征。本研究结果表明，这些复合材料具有与纯藻酸盐水凝胶相似的生物学特性。因此，所合成的复合材料均无细胞毒性，在薄膜上也观察不到细胞黏附。水在体温下的吸湿性随着 CNF 掺入藻酸盐基质而没有发生强烈变化。即使加入非常少量的 CNF，钙藻酸盐的动态力学和拉伸/压缩性能也得到了显著改善。因此，在干燥和水合状态下，钙藻酸盐薄膜的拉伸和压缩模量分别增加了三到六倍，加入 2%w/w 的 CNF。此外，加入最低含量 CNF 的复合材料具有透明度更高和生产成本更低的优势。
