Fabrication of porous gelatin microfibers using an aqueous wet spinning process

Alginate has a unique property of gel formation by chelating with divalent cations such as Ca(+2) in aqueous solution. The sol-gel characteristic of alginate has been utilized to fabricate both microsphere and microcapsule for cell immobilization. In this study, a wet spinning process was employed to prepare fibers comprised of gelatin and sodium alginate. Gelatin fibers containing interconnected porous structure were fabricated by the extraction of alginate from these gelatin/alginate composite fibers with phosphate buffer. The application of these porous gelatin fibers for enzyme immobilization was demonstrated by its usage as the base material of glucose biosensor.