Applications

Interest in potential biomedical applications of nanomaterials and nanostructured materials arises from the perception that they are able to interact with individual biomolecules, cells and their individual parts and other biological structures of similar size in the micrometre and nanometre range. They may also have properties different from micro- and macroobjects. Recently nanofibres (NF) were mentioned as a connection between the nanoscale world and the macroscale world, because at least in theory, having diameter of a fraction of a micron, nanofibres may be infinitely long [1]. Production of nanofibres by electrospinning has been extensively studied recently and a variety of porous NF made by different modifications of this method has been described. They include polylactide (PL), poly-glycolide (PG), polyethylene terephthalate, polyacrylonitrile, polyvinyl-carbazole, polycarbonate, polystyrene/ polymethylmethacrylate, PL/PEO, PL/polyvinylpyrrolidone and PL/(polyethylene oxide), [2]. Co-electro-spinning of colloidal particles such as hydroxyapatite with polymer solutions results in the production of NF with incorporated nanoparticles. Carbon nanotubes were coelectrospun with PEO and nanocomposite fibrils with very high mechanical strength were obtained [3]. Similarly, if polymer NF are produced from a drug containing solution, controlled drug release systems can be obtained [4]. Nanofibres of biodegradable polymers such as PL and PG are of particular interest for tissue engineering scaffolds, as they will completely dissolve after implantation thus leaving no foreign material in the body [5]. Using electrospinning technique, collagen fibres of 100 nm in diameter have been produced, which is similar to the size of natural collagen fibres [6]. The electrospun collagen NF were shown to promote cell growth and penetration into the engineered tissue scaffold.