ABSTRACT Tissue engineering has advanced the field of regenerative medicine by utilizing scaffolds to support tissue repair. To develop a multifunctional scaffold, polymers with complementary properties are combined. Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP) were selected as biocompatible matrices, with PEDOT:PSS added for conductivity and HTCC for antibacterial functionality. Two optimization strategies are applied: one examined the effects of PEDOT:PSS and PVP content and voltage on fiber diameter and crosslinking, while the other evaluated PEDOT:PSS concentration on electrical conductivity. Both identified 4 wt% PEDOT:PSS as optimal, resulting in enhanced scaffold performance and improved cell proliferation. The optimized PVA/PVP/PEDOT:PSS blend is co‐electrospun with a PVA/PVP/HTCC solution to fabricate a hybrid scaffold. The final structure shows a fiber diameter of 205 ± 12 nm, gel content of 93.4% ± 1.1%, and porosity of 73.6% ± 2.3%. At 4 wt% PEDOT:PSS, conductivity reached ~10 −5 S·cm −1 , over 10 4 times greater than the control. L929 fibroblast viability was 97.7% ± 3.0%, with a 2.3‐fold cell density increase over 5 days. HTCC addition achieves > 6‐log bacterial reduction and lowers enzymatic degradation from 38% to 21%. The resulting scaffold offers excellent conductivity, antibacterial activity, and cytocompatibility, making it a strong candidate for electroactive tissue engineering.
Javanmardi et al. (Fri,) studied this question.