Electrospinning of Poly[bis(ethyl alanato) phosphazene] Nanofibers

Electrospinning has emerged as one of the most elegant and versatile processes to fabricate fibers of micron and submicron diameters from a wide range of polymers. Biodegradable polymeric electrospun nanofiber matrices are attracting significant attention for various biomedical applications including tissue engineering. Biodegradable polyphosphazenes constitute a unique class of polymers with an inorganic backbone of nitrogen and phosphorous atoms with suitable organic side groups. The objective of the present study was to develop nanofibers from a biodegradable and biocompatible polyphosphazene, specifically poly[bis(ethyl alanato)phosphazene] (PNEA) by electrospinning. The effect of a range of process parameters such as the nature of solvents, concentration of the solution, applied electric potential, needle to target distance and flow rate of the polymer solution on the morphology, and diameter of the electrospun fibers were investigated. PNEA fibers spun using 9% (w/v) of polymer concentration, an electrical potential of 15 kV, a working distance of 30 cm, and a flow rate of 2 mL/hr resulted in bead/defect free nanofibers having fiber diameter of 331 +/- 108 nm. These biodegradable and biocompatible polyphosphazene nanofiber matrices could find a number of biomedical applications including tissue engineering and drug delivery.