Constructing 3D scaffold with 40-nm-diameter hollow mesoporous bioactive glass nanofibers

In this paper, a novel three-dimensional (3D) scaffold consisting of hollow mesoporous bioactive glass (MBG) nanofibers was synthesized via template-assisted sol-gel method. The hollow mesoporous fibers show an ultra-small diameter of around 40 nm, which is the smallest among all currently reported MBG fibers, and the resultant scaffold possesses a large specific surface area of 579.0 m(2) g(-1), which is the largest of all MBG products reported so far. It is believed that such ultrafine diameter and the presence of mesopores will endow the scaffold with excellent bioactivity, which makes it a promising candidate in controlled drug release and bone tissue engineering. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.