TAILORING TISSUE ENGINEERING SCAFFOLDS USING ELECTROSTATIC PROCESSING TECHNIQUES: A STUDY OF POLY(GLYCOLIC ACID) ELECTROSPINNING

TLDR

Poly(glycolic acid) is a widely used polymer in tissue engineering because of its biocompatibility, bioabsorbability, and tensile strength, yet conventional melt extrusion and cold‑drawing produce fibers 10–12 µm in diameter, whereas electrospinning can generate much finer fibers. The study aims to demonstrate that PGA fiber diameter can be tuned by solution concentration and orientation, and that fiber orientation correlates with elastic modulus and strain to failure. Electrospinning was used to produce PGA fibers of sub‑micron diameter suitable for scaffolds. The results show that adjusting solution concentration and fiber orientation controls PGA fiber diameter, and that fiber orientation is positively correlated with elastic modulus and strain to failure.

Abstract

Poly(glycolic acid) (PGA) has long been a popular polymer in the tissue engineering field. PGA possesses many favorable properties such as biocompatibility, bioabsorbability, and tensile strength. The traditional fiber formation techniques of melt extrusion and cold-drawing are generally limited to fibers of 10–12 μm in diameter. Electrostatic spinning, or electrospinning, is an attractive approach for the production of much smaller diameter fibers which are of interest as tissue engineering scaffolds. We demonstrate the ability to control the fiber diameter of PGA as a function of solution concentration and fiber orientation, as well as show a correlation between the fiber orientation, elastic modulu, and strain to failure of PGA in a uniaxial model.