Development of antibacterial and morphological features of scaffolds based on polycaprolactone encapsulated with copper oxide/vanadium oxide for wound dressing applications

The development of highly effective dressing materials for human injuries that meet the complex requirements for clinical examination is still a challenge. In this regard, different biomaterials could be examined for wound dressing targets. Among these materials, polycaprolactone (PCL) is high biocompatible polymeric substance and has been used for numerous pharmaceutical applications. Furthermore, targeting antibacterial behavior could be done by merging additional nanoparticles such as copper oxide (CuO) and vanadium Oxide (V2O5). The scaffolds could be fabricated using the cast method, which is one of the most simple and facile methods. The morphological features and the surface roughness of the fabricated could be examined using X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) tests. The contact angle plays a significant role in studying the wettability of the scaffolds and the hydrophilic or hydrophobic behavior of the composed films. Besides the antibacterial behavior to evaluate the effectiveness of these scaffolds to protect the injury until the healing. The cell viability against human normal cells to examine the biocompatibility of the proposed compositions. In this regard, the topographical images show a smooth surface with random pores that have diameters in the range of 0.5–1.5 μm for pure PCL while, the porosity decreased with the addition of ginger and V2O5. The blend of CuO/V2O5/ginger@ PCL represents a noticeable increase in porosity with a diameter between 0.5 and 3 μm. The contact angles were recorded respectively at 55.02°, 54.12°, 53.89°, and 53.71° which refer to the tendency of the scaffolds to the hydrophilic behavior. In addition, the anti-bacterial activity of CuO/V2O5/ginger@PCL was represented with the diameter of the inhibition zone equal to 17.6±1.2 mm for E. coli and 12.3±1.2 mm for S. aureus.