Evaluation of an air spinning process to produce tailored biosynthetic nanofibre scaffolds

Abstract

We optimised the working parameters of an innovative air spinning device to produce nanofibrous polymer scaffolds for tissue engineering applications. Scanning electron microscopy was performed on the fibre scaffolds which were then used to identify various scaffold morphologies based on the ratio of surface occupied by the polymer fibres on that covered by the entire polymer scaffold assembly. Scaffolds were then produced with the spinning experimental parameters, resulting in 90% of fibres in the overall polymer construct, and were subsequently used to perform a multiple linear regression analysis to highlight the relationship between nanofibre diameter and the air spinning parameters. Polymer solution concentration was deemed as the most significant parameter to control fibre diameter during the spinning process, despite interactions between experimental parameters. Based on these findings, viscosity measurements were performed to clarify the effect of the polymer solution property on scaffold morphology.

Design, Degradation Mechanism and Long‐Term Cytotoxicity of Poly(l‐lactide) and Poly(Lactide‐co‐ϵ‐Caprolactone) Terpolymer Film and Air‐Spun Nanofiber Scaffold

“…At day 0, nanofiber scaffolds display typical fibrous morphology that is produced by the air‐spinning device (Figure a). The surface proportion covered by the fibers is largely over 90% which confirms the choice of the setting parameters previously identified in a former article . In addition, the distribution of fiber diameters can be correlated with a lognormal curve ( R 2 = 0.90) displaying a maximum peak at 290 nm.…”

“…Also, the air‐spun PLCL nanofiber scaffold, presenting higher fiber diameters (Figure ) but still in the sub‐micrometer range, is evidenced to provide an appropriate scaffold surface for monolayer cell proliferation . Finally, this work establishes the ease of adapting spinning parameters while changing polymer . Meanwhile, the air‐spinning process remains a useful, fast, cheap, and safe route to produce non‐woven nanofiber scaffold and, accordingly, could be easily scalable to industrial applications.…”

“…PLCL and PLLA were also totally dissolved in chloroform (99.8%, Laboratoire Mat, Québec, QC, Canada) at room temperature and spun with an air‐spinning device previously described elsewhere . An optimal polymer concentration of 14 wt% was calculated from the viscosity of the polymer solution for both PLCL and PLLA and, accordingly, the needle diameter (0.41 mm), syringe pump flow rate (10 mL · h −1 ), air pressure (7.5 MPa) and needle‐collector distance (250 mm) were set.…”

“…Although, the electrospinning process presents significant advantages, it cannot be easily used to coat small diameter vascular prostheses because of the short distance separating the needle and the surface that is intended to receive the fibers and the discontinuous textile shape of the vascular prosthesis which impedes building‐up appropriate electrostatic field gradient, full jet development and solvent evaporation. To address to this issue, an alternative spinning device, called air‐spinning, has been introduced by our group and is continuously improved since 2008 to coat the internal surface of vascular prostheses.…”

Poly(lactic acid) fibers obtained by solution blow spinning: Effect of a greener solvent on the fiber diameter

“…Low MIR values means to be a more environmentally‐friendly chemical. The mathematical and statistical approach of response surface methodology (RSM) has been used to optimize formulation and process parameters for obtain nanofibers of several polymers such as poly(lactic acid), poly(ethylene oxide), poly(methyl‐methacrylate), polyvinyl alcohol, and starch . There is however no published study using RSM to optimize the SBS process parameters to produce poly(lactic acid) nanofibers using greener solvent.…”