Preparation of porous ultrafine PGA fibers via selective dissolution of electrospun PGA/PLA blend fibers

Abstract

In order to prepare porous ultrafine poly(glycolic acid) (PGA) fibers, ultrafine PGA/poly(l-lactic acid) (PLA) blend fibers were electrospun and then the PLA was removed via a selective dissolution technique with chloroform. PGA and PLA are immiscible and that a co-continuous phase morphology was developed during the electrospinning process. After extraction of the PLA, the resulting PGA fibers had three-dimensionally interconnected pores with a circular shape and the pore size distribution was very narrow.