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Current Applied Physics, Vol.14, No.1, 1-7, 2014
Highly porous 3D nanofibrous scaffolds processed with an electrospinning/laser process
Electrospinning has been widely used to produce micro/nanosized fibres. Although the method is very simple, easy, and effective for obtaining nanosized material, the fabrication of three dimensional (3D) shapes comprised of micro/nanofibres has been a major obstacle for use in tissue engineering. In this study, a new electrospinning method to fabricate controllable 3D micro/nanofibrous structure (with thickness over 3 mm) is suggested. The fabricated 3D fibrous structure was fully porous and successfully consisted of submicron-sized fibres. However, the pores in the 3D fibrous structure were too small (5 -10 mu m), so we used a femtosecond laser process to achieve enough cell infiltration and proliferation in the thickness direction of the 3D structure. By controlling appropriate processing conditions, we can successfully fabricate a highly porous 3D micro/nanofibrous structure with various pore sizes ranging from 189 + 28 mu m to 380 + 21 mu m. The fabricated 3D fibrous scaffolds were assessed for in vitro biological capabilities by culturing osteoblast like cells (MG63). Compared with the rapid-prototyped PCL scaffold, the 3D fibrous scaffold exhibited significantly higher biological activities (initial cell attachment and cell proliferation) due to the topographical structure of micro/nanofibres. (C) 2013 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.