Page 76 - Tailoring Electrospinning Techniques for Regenerative Medicine - Marc Simonet

CHAPTER 4
4.1 Abstract
Electrospinning has proven to be a promising method to produce sca olds for tissue engineering despite the frequently encountered limitations in 3-dimensional tissue formation due to a lack of cell infiltration. To fully unlock the potential of electrospun sca olds for tissue engineering, the void space within the fibrous network needs to be increased substantially and in a controlled manner. Low-temperature electrospinning (LTE) increases the fiber to fiber distance by embedding ice particles as void spacers during fiber deposition. Sca old porosities up to 99.5% can be reached and in line with the increase in void space, the mechanical
properties of the sca olds shi towards the range for native biological tissue. While both the physiological mechanical properties and high porosity are promising for tissue engineering applications, control of the porosity in three dimensions was still limited when using LTE methods. Based on a range of LTE spun sca olds made of poly(lactic acid) and poly(ε-caprolactone), we find that changing the ratio between ice crystal formation and polymer fiber deposition only had a small e ect on the 3D-porosity of the final sca old architecture. Varying the fiber sti ness, however, o ers considerable control over the sca old void spaces.
74