Thermal and dynamic mechanical behavior of poly(lactic acid) (PLA)-based electrospun scaffolds for tissue engineering

Electrospun scaffolds can find numerous applications, including biomedical; for example, tissue engineering. Poly-L-lactic acid is considered suitable for these applications, but its low-thermal stability and its poor mechanical properties limit this polymer use. The aim of this work is to obtain a modulation of the final scaffolds characteristics such as fibers dimension, wettability, elasticity, and resistance to rupture through the choice of the polymers to be electrospun. Different electrospun scaffolds containing gelatin, Poly-DL-lactic acid, different percentages of cellulose nanocrystals and an elastin peptide have been produced. Thermal stability, physical structure, and its mechanical behavior have been studied. Results suggest that the electrospun scaffolds show better thermal and mechanical properties than bulk materials; that is, the scaffolds with the best hydrophilic and thermomechanical properties are the samples containing 3% (wt/wt) of CNCs and elastin peptide.