Abstract:
Electrospun polycaprolactone (PCL) nanofibers are often used as biomedical materials for drug release systems and tissue engineering scaffolds due to their biodegradability, but the hydrophobicity and mechanical defects limit the wider applications. Here, polybutyrolactam (PBL), a biodegradable polyamide with excellent mechanical properties and high moisture regain, was blended with PCL in co-solvent to electrospin fiber membranes with improved mechanical properties and the hydrophilicity. Scanning electron microscope (SEM), water contact angle measuring instrument, atomic force microscope (AFM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), electronic universal tension machine were used to investigate the morphology, diameter and distribution of fibers, the hydrophilicity, crystallinity, thermal and mechanical properties of the fiber membranes. It was found that increasing the PBL content increased the fiber diameter, narrowed the diameter distribution, and significantly improved the hydrophilicity of the fiber membrane. PBL had been shown to be compatible with PCL, and the crystallinity of PCL/PBL electrospun fiber membranes with increasing PBL content was higher than that of monocomponent fiber membranes. Increasing the PBL content also slightly raised the melting point of the PCL component in the fiber membranes, while that of PBL remained unchanged. The crystallization temperatures of PBL and PCL, as well as the thermal stability of the fiber membranes decreased with increasing PBL content. The addition of PBL significantly improved the mechanical properties of electrospun fiber membranes. The greater PBL content was, the better the mechanical properties of the fiber membrane were.