The fabrication of iron oxide nanoparticle-nanofiber composites by electrospinning and their applications in tissue engineering.

This paper reviews the use of iron oxide nanoparticle-nanofiber composites in tissue engineering with a focus on the electrospinning technique. Electrospinning is an established method of scaffold fabrication offering a number of key advantages which include its facile nature, with electrospun materials offering a high surface area to volume ratio, potential for the release of drugs and antimicrobials, controllable fiber diameters and high porosity and permeability. A number of different techniques for the preparation of iron oxide nanoparticles including their functionalization are discussed along with their applications in the biomedical field. The review then focusses on the fabrication of nanoparticle-nanofiber composite scaffolds formed using electrospinning. The advantages and disadvantages of current fabrication techniques are discussed including the fabrication of nanofibers using pre-synthesized nanoparticles and post-treatment synthesized nanoparticles. We demonstrate that emerging in-situ synthesis techniques show promise by offering a reduced number of steps and simpler procedures for the production of magnetic scaffolds. These scaffolds have a number of applications in tissue engineering, allowing for improved bone and tissue repair.

In-situ synthesis of magnetic iron-oxide nanoparticle-nanofibre composites using electrospinning.

We demonstrate a facile, one-step process to form polymer scaffolds composed of magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (MNPs) contained within electrospun nano- and micro-fibres of two biocompatible polymers, Poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and Poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP). This was achieved with both needle and free-surface electrospinning systems demonstrating the scalability of the composite fibre manufacture; a 228 fold increase in fibre fabrication was observed for the free-surface system. In all cases the nanoparticle-nanofibre composite scaffolds displayed morphological properties as good as or better than those previously described and fabricated using complex multi-stage techniques. Fibres produced had an average diameter (Needle-spun: 125±18nm (PEO) and 1.58±0.28µm (PVP); Free-surface electrospun: 155±31nm (PEO)) similar to that reported previously, were smooth with no bead defects. Nanoparticle-nanofibre composites were characterised using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), dynamic light scattering (DLS) (Nanoparticle average diameter ranging from 8±3nm to 27±5nm), XRD (Phase of iron oxide nanoparticles identified as magnetite) and nuclear magnetic resonance relaxation measurements (NMR) (T1/T2: 32.44 for PEO fibres containing MNPs) were used to verify the magnetic behaviour of MNPs. This study represents a significant step forward for production rates of magnetic nanoparticle-nanofibre composite scaffolds by the electrospinning technique.