Electrohydrodynamic Bubbling: An Alternative Routeto Fabricate Porous Structures of Silk Fibroin Based Materials.

Conventionalfabrication techniques and structures employed inthe design of silk fibroin (SF) based porous materials provide onlylimited control over pore size and require several processing stages.In this study, it is shown that, by utilizing electrohydrodynamicbubbling, not only can new hollow spherical structures of SF be formedin a single step by means of bubbles, but the resulting bubbles canserve as pore generators when dehydrated. The bubble characteristicscan be controlled through simple adjustments to the processing parameters.Bubbles with diameters in the range of 240–1000 μm werefabricated in controlled fashion. FT-IR characterization confirmedthat the rate of air infused during processing enhanced β-sheetpacking in SF at higher flow rates. Dynamic mechanical analysis alsodemonstrated a correlation between air flow rate and film tensilestrength. Results indicate that electrohydrodynamically generatedSF and their composite bubbles can be employed as new tools to generateporous structures in a controlled manner with a range of potentialapplications in biocoatings and tissue engineering scaffolds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]