Electrospinning is a widely investigated and used technique for creating nano and
microfibres which has a wide range of medical and pharmaceutical applications. For
cell culturing and tissue engineering, it is a greatly investigated method because
it resembles the extracellular matrix. Changing the electrospinning parameters we
affect the properties of these systems to fine-tune it for our needs. To create a
high porosity fibrous mesh for culturing different cells in a suitable three-dimensional
way, we need to step forward from conventional electrospinning. In this paper, we
are presenting a strategy involving the addition of inorganic salts to electrospinning
solution to reproducibly synthesize nano and microfibrous fluffy 3D structures from
polysuccinimide (a biocompatible and biodegradable polymer). Effect of different concentrations
of LiCl, MgCl2 and CaCl2 on fibre properties are presented. Results show that the
3D structured fibrous meshes were produced in the presence of LiCl, MgCl2 or CaCl2
in a narrow concentration range. To understand the effect of salt on the resulting
meshes characterization of the ion-ion and ion-solvent interactions were carried out
using vibration spectroscopy and density functional theory calculation.
