High strength and strain alginate fibers by a novel wheel spinning technique for knitting stretchable and biocompatible wound-care materials

Alginate fibrous materials have been applied as wound dressing to enhance wound healing due to its nontoxic, biodegradable, and hemostatic nature. Conventional nonwoven fabrication tactics, however, showed weakness in inflammation, degradation stability and mechanical properties. Herein, the wet-spun alginate fibers were prepared by a novel wheel spinning technique, then knitted into wound dressing. Benefiting from optimized wet spinning parameters and the agglomeration of alginate multimers, the fibers were endowed with elevated mechanical performances and biodegradability, which allowed for the feasibility of knitting wound-care materials. Using the new wheel spinning technique, high strength alginate fibers with 173 MPa were produced with breaking strain up to 18% and toughness of 16.16 MJ*m ⁻³. Meanwhile, alginate fibers with high breaking strain reaching 35% were produced with tensile strength of 135 MPa and toughness of 37.47 MJ*m ⁻³. The overall mechanical performances of these alginate fibers with high breaking strain are significantly higher (up to 2 times) than those published in the literature in term of toughness. In vitro degradation evaluation revealed that this wet spun fibrous dressing had good aqueous absorbency (50%) and sustained biodegradation properties. Furthermore, the consequent cell viability study also proved that this alginate knitted fabric is biocompatible for being applied as wound dressing.