Fabrication and Characterization of Electrospun Drug-eluting Nanofibers from Polycaprolactone/Chitosan Blends

Abstract

Electrospinning has emerged as a widely accepted technique with ability to produce nanofibers that can be employed in many biomedical applications.In particular, drugeluting nanofibers have become very popular in controlled release of small molecule drugs.In this study, nanofibers from blends of polylactocaprone (PCL) and chitosan (CHI) were electrospun with the ability to load a model drug, acetylsalicylic acid (ASA), at 10 wt%.PCL/CHI fibers exhibited smooth surface morphology at polymer compositions ranging from 100/0 to 40/60 with or without the incorporation of ASA.Mechanical properties suggested a brittle failure mechanism for fibers loaded with drug.In vitro drug release study displayed a controlled release profile of ASA up to 48 h.Our study aims to explore the drug-polymer interactions and their effects on fiber structure, mechanical properties and drug release profile.