Tissue engineering is an interdisciplinary area in which polymeric nanofibers have been exploited either as scaffolds or wound dressings. This chapter overviews the use of versatile electro-hydrodynamic processing techniques for developing antimicrobial nanofibrous mats derived from polymeric biocomposites. The influence of well-known antimicrobial nanoparticles on the physical properties of precursory polymeric solution is discussed, and the consequences of their variations on several important morphological parameters, namely average fiber diameter and orientation, porosity, pore size, among others, are considered. Moreover, other specific properties of composite fibers conferred by the nanoparticles are reviewed as well as their use toward the design of multifunctional polymeric mats.
Part of the book: Nanofiber Research