Temperature-Responsive Polymers

Chapter 14Thermoresponsive Electrospun Polymer‐based (Nano)fibers

Mariliz Achilleos and Theodora Krasia‐Christoforou

Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Cyprus, 1678 Nicosia, Cyprus

14.1 Introduction

The needs of today's society require the unceasing design and development of novel smart materials that could be employed in facing various societal challenges, thus leading to a better quality of life [1]. Thermoresponsive polymers capable of responding to temperature changes belong to the general class of smart, stimuli‐responsive materials that have received steadily increased interest over the last decades [2–5]. Numerous synthetic methodologies have been reported describing the preparation of thermoresponsive polymer‐based systems in various forms including hydrogels, micelles, films, particles, fibers, polymersomes, etc. [6]. In those systems, poly(N‐isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) is by far the most widely used thermoresponsive polymer due to the fact that its lower critical solution temperature (LCST), which is around 32 °C [7], is close to that of the body, thus rendering it suitable in biomedical applications including temperature‐triggered drug delivery [8, 9], tissue engineering [10–12], biosensing [13], and bioseparation [14–16].

Electrospinning is a simple, scalable, and highly versatile method of low cost that enables the production of continuous polymer (nano)fibers. The progress in the development of polymer‐based materials in the form of ...