Assembly of porous graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets into electrospun polycaprolactone nanofibers for bone tissue engineering

Polycaprolactone (PCL) is a widely used synthetic biopolymer in the field of biomedical applications. However, poor hydrophilicity, slow degradation rate, and weak cellular responses have been made to limit its use. Hence, improving these properties is essential to recognize as a broadly acceptable biomaterial with enhanced cellular activities. For this purpose, porous g-C₃N₄ nanosheets incorporated PCL nanofibrous scaffolds were synthesized via the electrospinning method. The effect of g-C₃N₄ nanosheets into the PCL/g-C₃N₄ composite scaffolds was characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and thermogravimetric analysis/differential scanning calorimetry (TGA/DSC). Moreover, mechanical behaviors, contact angle, biodegradability, and biocompatibility were also evaluated. Our findings showed that porous g-C₃N₄ nanosheets decreased the overall fiber diameter of composite scaffolds while increasing mechanical properties, wettability, biodegradability, and improved bioactivity on MC3T3-E1 cells in in vitro test. Based on the obtained results, we suggest that PCL/g-C₃N₄ composite could potentially provide a new platform for bone tissue engineering application.