Advocating Electrically Conductive Scaffolds with Low Immunogenicity for Biomedical Applications: A Review.

Scaffolds support and promote the formation of new functional tissues through cellular interactions with living cells. Various types of scaffolds have found their way into biomedical science, particularly in tissue engineering. Scaffolds with a superior tissue regenerative capacity must be biocompatible and biodegradable, and must possess excellent functionality and bioactivity. The different polymers that are used in fabricating scaffolds can influence these parameters. Polysaccharide-based polymers, such as collagen and chitosan, exhibit exceptional biocompatibility and biodegradability, while the degradability of synthetic polymers can be improved using chemical modifications. However, these modifications require multiple steps of chemical reactions to be carried out, which could potentially compromise the end product's biosafety. At present, conducting polymers, such as poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) poly(4-styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT: PSS), polyaniline, and polypyrrole, are often incorporated into matrix scaffolds to produce electrically conductive scaffold composites. However, this will reduce the biodegradability rate of scaffolds and, therefore, agitate their biocompatibility. This article discusses the current trends in fabricating electrically conductive scaffolds, and provides some insight regarding how their immunogenicity performance can be interlinked with their physical and biodegradability properties.

Synthesis and Characterization of Porous, Electro-Conductive Chitosan-Gelatin-Agar-Based PEDOT: PSS Scaffolds for Potential Use in Tissue Engineering.

Herein we report the synthesis and characterization of electro-conductive chitosan-gelatin-agar (Cs-Gel-Agar) based PEDOT: PSS hydrogels for tissue engineering. Cs-Gel-Agar porous hydrogels with 0-2.0% (v/v) PEDOT: PSS were fabricated using a thermal reverse casting method where low melting agarose served as the pore template. Sample characterizations were performed by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM), attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Our results showed enhanced electrical conductivity of the cs-gel-agar hydrogels when mixed with DMSO-doped PEDOT: PSS wherein the optimum mixing ratio was observed at 1% (v/v) with a conductivity value of 3.35 × 10-4 S cm-1. However, increasing the PEDOT: PSS content up to 1.5 % (v/v) resulted in reduced conductivity to 3.28 × 10-4 S cm-1. We conducted in vitro stability tests on the porous hydrogels using phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) solution and investigated the hydrogels' performances through physical observations and ATR-FTIR characterization. The present study provides promising preliminary data on the potential use of Cs-Gel-Agar-based PEDOT: PSS hydrogel for tissue engineering, and these, hence, warrant further investigation to assess their capability as biocompatible scaffolds.

Photochemical Synthesis of Nanosheet Tin Di/Sulfide with Sunlight Response on Water Pollutant Degradation.

The photochemical synthesis of two-dimensional (2D) nanostructured from semiconductor materials is unique and challenging. We report, for the first time, the photochemical synthesis of 2D tin di/sulfide (PS-SnS2-x, x = 0 or 1) from thioacetamide (TAA) and tin (IV) chloride in an aqueous system. The synthesized PS-SnS2-x were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), a particle size distribution analyzer, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermal analysis, UV⁻Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DR UV⁻Vis), and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. In this study, the PS-SnS2-x showed hexagonally closed-packed crystals having nanosheets morphology with the average size of 870 nm. Furthermore, the nanosheets PS-SnS2-x demonstrated reusable photo-degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye as a water pollutant, owing to the stable electronic conducting properties with estimated bandgap (Eg) at ~2.5 eV. Importantly, the study provides a green protocol by using photochemical synthesis to produce 2D nanosheets of semiconductor materials showing photo-degradation activity under sunlight response.