Fabrication of Gelatin Short Nanofiber via Wet electrospinning/Sonication Method

Nowadays, the nanofiber-hydrogel composites has attracted a lot of attention in tissue engineering due to having morphological similarity with the soft tissues. In present study, we fabricated gelatin nanofibers through the wet spinning method to be used as a reinforcing agent within hydrogel in our future study. The used concenrration, flow rate and voltage to fabricate gelatin nanofibers were ۱۹% w/v, ۰.۵ to ۰.۷ ml/h and ۱۵ to ۱۷ kV respectively. Then the nanofibers were chopped using a probe sonicator with a power of ۸۰ Watts, and crosslinked using EDC/NHS. The SEM images of fabricated nanofibers showd that they have average diameter of ۴۵۵±۵۸ nm and average length of ۱۰.۱۸±۲.۳ μm. The chemical structure of the nanofibers was analyzed by FTIR. The cross-linking degree of the fibers was also investigated using the ninhydrin method that demonstrate that about ۶۳.۸ of amine groups of gelatin nanofibers are consumed in crosslinking reaction.

Keywords:

Gelatin , Nanofiber , Wet spinning , Biopolymer , Sonication