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Effect of crosslinking stage on photocrosslinking of benzophenone functionalized poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) nanofibers obtained by aqueous electrospinning

Journal Contribution - Journal Article

In this study, benzophenone was introduced onto partially hydrolyzed poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) (PEtOx-PEI) to prepare a poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline)-benzophenone (PEtOx-BP) copolymer, which was used to produce water stable nanofibers via aqueous electrospinning and photocrosslinking. Three different ultraviolet (UV) irradiation methods, i.e. pre-crosslinking before electrospinning, in-situ crosslinking during electrospinning and post-crosslinking after electrospinning, were used to prepare crosslinked nanofibers. The influence of UV-irradiation at these different stages of the nanofiber production process was investigated in terms of alterations in viscosity, nanofiber morphology and water stability of the fibers. It was shown that pre-crosslinking the polymer solutions had a great influence on the solution viscosity which could both positively or negatively alter the stability of the electrospinning process. Whereas the strategy of crosslinking nanofibers during the production process did not lead to uniform nor water-stable nanofibers, the pre-crosslinking and post-crosslinking strategies greatly increased the water stability of the nanofibers. In both techniques the crosslinking density and therefore water solubility can be easily tuned by manipulating the polymer concentration, UV-irradiation time and membrane thickness. Complete insolubility, i.e. the formation of crosslinked networks, was achieved by the post-cross linking strategy. This work provides straightforward methods to increase the water stability of the PEtOx nanofibers, which will definitely be of great value to biomedical applications such as drug delivery and tissue engineering.
Journal: EUROPEAN POLYMER JOURNAL
ISSN: 0014-3057
Volume: 112
Pages: 24 - 30
Publication year:2019
BOF-keylabel:yes
IOF-keylabel:yes
BOF-publication weight:2
CSS-citation score:3
Authors:National
Authors from:Higher Education
Accessibility:Open