Fabrication and in vitro biomineralization of bioactive glass (BG) nanofibres

Bioactive glass nanofibres have excellent bioactivity and cell compatibility, and are regarded as a promising next-generation biomaterial in the bone-regeneration field. This paper is concentrated on the effect of electrospinning parameters on the diameter and morphology of bioactive glass nanofibres, and the process of in vitro biomineralization. In this work, sol-gel glass nanofibres with high bioactivity were prepared by electrospinning processing in the presence of poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP) and pluronic P123 (EO(20)-PO(70)-EO(20)) as chain entanglements. The influence of the polymer concentration, types of polymer and electric field strength on the fibre diameter was examined. The average diameter of these BG nanofibres could be controlled in the range from 85 to 400 nm. The addition of PVP resulted in sufficient chain entanglement and the formation of smooth BG nanofibres, and the addition of P123 led to a further decrease of the diameter with appropriate electric field strength, which held the balance between the electrostatic repulsive force and surface tension of the electrospinning solution. Furthermore, the early stage of in vitro biomineralization of the BG nanofibres in the simulated body fluid (SBF) was studied in this work. The behaviour of in vitro biomineralization of bioactive glass nanofibres was different to the conventional ones, and the structure of bioactive glasses contributed to the formation process of hydroxyapatite.