Piezoelectric plastic compressed collagen-mesh scaffold for artificial skin

Our skin, and many other tissue types, display electrical and electromechanical properties, which play an important role in tissue regeneration and healing. This work explored a new route for artificial skin with similar properties and presents an opportunity for further enhancing tissue repair. To this end, the electrical properties and piezoelectricity of a collagen-mesh scaffold are investigated. This method has demonstrable success in the rapid fabrication of 3D tissue scaffold equivalents for a skin substitute. As hydration is known to reduce the piezoelectric response of biological materials, as well as alter the conductance and charge storage capabilities, efforts were made to characterize the scaffold in both the dehydrated and hydrated states. The measured capacitance, at 100Hz frequency, was 37nF and 0.45nF for the hydrated and dehydrated scaffold, respectively. The piezoelectric sensitivity of the dehydrated scaffold was ~17 mV N^-1 which is large enough to be detected by cells. The results of this study could open a pathway for advancing human-like sense of touch in eSkin with piezoelectric collagen fibrils.