Fabrication of free standing collagen membranes by pulsed-electrophoretic deposition

This work reports an important new development in the production of collagen membranes, based on pulsed electrophoretic deposition (P-EPD), suitable for a wide range of biomedical applications. Collagen membranes are of great interest as a biomaterial and in a range of other industries, though current production techniques suffer from limitations with scaling up, homogeneity, and complex shapes. P-EPD can be used to rapidly create detachable, large-area, homogeneous products with controlled thickness in a wide variety of shapes. We provide a new understanding of the influence of a range of parameters (pulse width, voltage, duty cycle, solvent additions) and their effects on membrane structure. Characterisation by AFM, SEM, and cryoSEM revealed the ability to produce dense, structurally defect-free membranes, and significantly, we show and discuss the ability to produce thicker membranes by sequential deposition without seeing a corresponding increase in cell electrical resistance. We anticipate this novel, rapid, and controllable method for the production of collagen membranes to be of interest for a wide range of fields.