Needleless electrospun carboxymethyl cellulose/polyethylene oxide mats with medicinal plant extracts for advanced wound care applications

Electrospinning as method for fabrication of wound dressing materials with included medical plant extracts for wound treatment has lately gained increasing attention. However, the transfer of nanofiber fabrication with included plant extracts from the research to the pilot and industrial scale production, using needleless electrospinning is a vital area of research, which could enable its large-scale commercial exploitation. Carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) is a cheap, water soluble biopolymer, and in blends with the spinning agent polyethylene oxide (PEO) it is a suitable polymer for a large-scale nanofiber production. Thus, this study addresses the needleless electrospinning of CMC/PEO/plant extract blend aqueous solutions in order to fabricate cellulose based wound dressing material, suitable for treatment of acute wounds. The influence of plant extracts on the morphology of the electrospun mats was further evaluated. The antioxidant and antibacterial properties of the as-prepared electrospun mats were determined, where special attention was devoted to the stability/degradation study of phenolic compounds in plant extracts during the electrospinning process. This research was complemented by the release study and cell viability testing with results indicating a promising potential of this product to use for wound care as a self-contained wound dressing or as a part of number of already existing novel wound dressing materials.