Nanoporous Electrospun Fibrous Meshes: Size-Controlled Reverse Micelles Strategy

A simple and efficient method to fabricate size-controlled nanoporous-nanofibrous meshes has been demonstrated by introducing and removing novel size-controllable porogens, reverse micelles, on electrospun polymeric nanofibers. Poly(D,L-lactide) and reverse micelles composed of amphiphilic diblock copolymer, poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether-block-poly(ε-caprolactone), were first dissolved in an acetone/chloroform (3:1, v/v) mixture and then electrospun into nanofibers, followed by 70% EtOH post-treatment. During the post-treatment, the reverse micelles were dissolved in 70% EtOH at room temperature thus separated from the poly(D,L-lactide) nanofibers backbone, resulting in a nanoporous nanofibrous structure. The pores on the nanofibers are size-controllable because the sizes of the reverse micelles can be adjusted by varying the water content inside them. The sizes of reverse micelles, which ranged from 100 nm to 700 nm, are investigated by dynamic light scattering. The pores of various sizes on the poly(D,L-lactide) nanofibers have areas ranging from 20 μm2 to 80 μm2 were observed by field-emission scanning electron microscopy.