Since the last decade, piezoelectric polymer nanofifibers have been of great interest in the stimulation of cell
growth and proliferation for tissue engineering and wound healing applications. To date, there is no clear un
derstanding of how the piezoelectric properties of piezoelectric materials can be affffected by electrospinning
parameters and how the piezoelectricity from the electrospun polymer nanofifibers produced under optimized
electrospinning conditions in vivo would affffect cell growth, proliferation and elongation. In this paper, it is
shown for the fifirst time how electrospinning parameters, such as solution concentration and collecting distance
(from the needle to the rotating mandrel), can affffect the piezoelectricity of the poly(vinylidene flfluoride-tri-
flfluoroethylene) (P(VDF-TrFE)) nanofifibers. Here, the optimized electrospinning conditions for P(VDF-TrFE)
nanofifibers were achieved and these nanofifiber scaffffolds (NFSs) were used for implanted energy harvester in SD
rats, cell proliferation and cell alignment growth applications. During the process of slightly pulling implanted
site of SD rats, the implanted PVDF-TrFE NFSs generated a maximum voltage and current of 6 mV and ~ 6 µA,
respectively. With great cytocompatibility and relatively large piezoelectric effffect, fifibroblast cells grew and
aligned perfectly along the electrospinning direction of P(VDF-TrFE) nanofifiber direction and cell proliferation
rate was enhanced by 1.6 fold. Thus, electrospun P(VDF-TrFE) NFSs show great promise in tissue engineering
and wound healing applications. |