Overview of Tissue Engineering and Drug Delivery Applications of Reactive Electrospinning and Crosslinking Techniques of Polymeric Nanofibers with Highlights on Their Biocompatibility Testing and Regulatory Aspects

Traditional electrospinning is a promising technique for fabricating nanofibers for tissue engineering and drug delivery applications. The method is highly efficient in producing nanofibers with morphology and porosity similar to the extracellular matrix. Nonetheless, and in many instances, the process has faced several limitations, including weak mechanical strength, large diameter distributions, and scaling-up difficulties of its fabricated electrospun nanofibers. The constraints of the polymer solution's intrinsic properties are primarily responsible for these limitations. Reactive electrospinning constitutes a novel and modified electrospinning techniques developed to overcome those challenges and improve the properties of the fabricated fibers intended for various biomedical applications. This review mainly addresses reactive electrospinning techniques, a relatively new approach for making in situ or post-crosslinked nanofibers. It provides an overview of and discusses the recent literature about chemical and photoreactive electrospinning, their various techniques, their biomedical applications, and FDA regulatory aspects related to their approval and marketing. Another aspect highlighted in this review is the use of crosslinking and reactive electrospinning techniques to enhance the fabricated nanofibers' physicochemical and mechanical properties and make them more biocompatible and tailored for advanced intelligent drug delivery and tissue engineering applications.

Sputtering of Electrospun Polymer-Based Nanofibers for Biomedical Applications: A Perspective

Electrospinning has gained wide attention recently in biomedical applications. Electrospun biocompatible scaffolds are well-known for biomedical applications such as drug delivery, wound dressing, and tissue engineering applications. In this review, the synthesis of polymer-based fiber composites using an electrospinning technique is discussed. Formerly, metal particles were then deposited on the surface of electrospun fibers using sputtering technology. Key nanometals for biomedical applications including silver and copper nanoparticles are discussed throughout this review. The formulated scaffolds were found to be suitable candidates for biomedical uses such as antibacterial coatings, surface modification for improving biocompatibility, and tissue engineering. This review briefly mentions the characteristics of the nanostructures while focusing on how nanostructures hold potential for a wide range of biomedical applications.