Characterization and physiochemical of PCL/extracted collagen blend coated nanostructure Sodium-Alginate substrate for skin tissue engineering application

Abstract This study involves fabrication a nano-membrane of collagen and polycarbolactone by electrospinning and depositing into alginate films prepared by casting method to serve as a scaffold for tissue engineering. Collagen extracted from bovine skin showed poor ability to electrospun, so polycaprolactone (PCL), a synthetic polymer commonly used in tissue engineering scaffolds was chosen to improve the electrospinning process and obtain continuous fibers without beads suitable for application in tissue engineering. The scaffolds were analyzed using Field emission scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transformtion infrared spectroscopy, swelling degree testing, and wettability measurements. FESEM results showed that blending PCL with collagen led to improving the electrospinning process and obtaining uniform, continuous fibers (with average fiber diameter 44.97 ± 1.61 nm) without beads and more crosslinking compared to the polycarbolactone scaffold. The results of the wettability and degree of swelling also showed the effect of collagen on increasing the hydrophilicity of the scaffold, and reducedthe water contact angle to (66.66°) with degree of swelling (1256%), that making it suitable for tissue engineering applications.