Biomimetic Carbon Fiber Systems Engineering: A Modular Design Strategy To Generate Biofunctional Composites from Graphene and Carbon Nanofibers

• DOI: 10.1021/acsami.8b17627
• Publication Date: 2019-01-02T16:47:09Z
• Authors: Mohammadreza Taale; Fabian Schütt; Tian Carey; Janik Marx; Yogendra Kumar Mi...; Norbert Stock; Bodo Fiedler; Felice Torrisi; Rainer Adelung; Christine Selhube...
• Keywords: Electrospinning; Carbon fibers

Carbon-based fibrous scaffolds are highly attractive for all biomaterial applications that require electrical conductivity. It is additionally advantageous if such materials resembled the structural and biochemical features of natural extracellular environment. Here, we show a novel modular design strategy to engineer biomimetic carbon fiber-based scaffolds. Highly porous ceramic zinc oxide (ZnO) microstructures serve as three-dimensional (3D) sacrificial templates infiltrated with nanotubes (CNTs) or graphene dispersions. Once CNTs coat ZnO template, either removed by hydrolysis converted into chemical vapor deposition. The resulting 3D both hierarchically ordered free-standing. properties microfibrous were tailored high porosity (up 93%), Young's modulus (ca. 0.027-22 MPa), an conductivity ca. 0.1-330 S/m, well different surface compositions. Cell viability, fibroblast proliferation rate protein adsorption assays have shown generated biocompatible capacity 77.32 ± 6.95 mg/cm3) so they able resemble matrix not only structurally but also biochemically. allow successful growth adhesion cells, showing provide novel, scalable generate fiber systems mimic additional feature