Ibuprofen and acetylsalicylic acid loaded electrospun PVP-dextran nanofiber mats for biomedical applications.

Electrospinning is a unique technique for producing nano- and micro-sized continuous polymer fibers. Electrospun nanofibers are excellent candidates in filtration, drug delivery systems, in separation membranes, as reinforcement in composite materials and medical devices, as well as in biomaterials for wound dressings and scaffolds for tissue engineering. Electrospinning is capable of producing ultrafine fiber with nanometer range diameters using natural and synthetic polymers, which yield very high specific surface areas, up to one to two orders of magnitude higher than current microfibers produced from conventional melting and dry/wet spinning methods.

Therefore, electrospun nanofibers are very useful for development of various products having a large surface area. Many polymers such as polylactic acid (PLA), polyethylene glycol (PEO), polyurethane (PU), polyethylene-co-vinyl acetate (PEVA), polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) and cellulose acetate (CA) have been used in electrospinning technique to form fibers in biomedical applications, such as drug delivery applications, tissue engineering scaffolds, wound healing and biosensors, etc. One alternative polymer is dextran. Dextran is a biopolymer produced by a variety oflactic acid bacteria that consists of R-1, 6 linked D glucopyranose residues with some R-1,2-, R-1, 3-, or R-1,4 linked side chains. Dextran is used in various biomedical applications, such as carriers for drug delivery, scaffolds for cell and tissue culture and molecular arms due to its biodegradability, biocompatibility, wide availability, and ease of modification. Scaffold materials including dextran are soft and flexible, and therefore these materials enhance the processing efficiency for the management on woodtreatment. Compared with other biodegradable polymers, dextran is fairly inexpensive and readily available.

This study will be the first to obtain dextran nanofibers using water-soluble PVPsupported polymer by electrospinning. Dextran could be blended easily with the use of water-soluble biodegradable hydrophilic polymers, such as polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), and by making use of the unique solubility characteristic to prepare nanofiber mats by electrospinning.

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