PREPARATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF NANOFIBROUS MATERIALS WITH A SHISH-KEBAB STRUCTURE

Biodegradable nanofiber materials are widely used for biomedical applications such as tissue engineering. These materials are characterized by submicron fibre diameter, small pore size, and large specific surface area (surface to volume ratio), and this structure is very similar to the natural extracellular matrix and is a favorable environment for the growth of eukaryotic cells. These days research focuses on other modifications of nanofiber structures for upgrades these structures or to create specific properties e.g. antimicrobial character. Fibre morphology and structure are able modified during their preparation, a suitable method for that is electrospinning technology and post-process modification. Electrospun materials with nanofiber backbone decorated with protruding periodic pattern of polymer crystals are termed nanofiber shish-kebabs. The shish-kebab structure can be formed by post-process recrystallization in suitable liquids (dilute polymer solution, partial solvent, or a mixture of solvent and non-solvent, solvent or partial solvent, or dilute polymer solution evaporation. The crystal period can be controlled to be a few hundreds of nanometres. Partial enzyme-catalyzed degradation of electrospun nanofibers is another method to prepare a similar structure. In this case, amorphous parts of polymer nanofibers are preferentially degraded, and the remaining macromolecules form new structures, mainly crystal structures resembling nanofiber shish-kebab. The aim of this study was preparation, description, and characterization of mentioned structure.