Fabrication, characterization, and surface modification by photografting of electrospun polycaprolactone nanofibers

Abstract

During the past decades, synthetic polymers have been increasingly used in the fabrication of medical devices that make direct contact with human blood [1]. When blood is exposed to artificial surfaces, several defense systems in organism such as coagulation occur, led by activation and adhesion of the platelets on this artificial material [1,5,26]. To avoid the activation of the defense systems by the exposure of blood to foreign materials, many attempts to modify their surfaces have been made [1,2]. The main focus of this work is to modify the surface of electrospun polycaprolactone (PCL) nanofibers in order to create a blood compatible nanofiber mat. So as to create such material, poly (2-methoxyethyl acrylate) (PMEA) is grafted by photograftig on the surface of the nanofibers. PMEA has been reported [26, 29-31, 33] as an excellent blood-compatibility polymer. To prove that the PMEA has been effectively photografted on the surface of the created nanofiber, XPS and FT-IR were conducted. Moreover, SEM was used to demonstrate a variation of the fiber diameter after the photografting. A platelet adhesion test was performed on this novel material, concluding that the PMEA grafted on the surface of the PCL nanofiber decreases the appearance of adhered platelets on the surface of the nanofiber mat.