5 - Melt electrospinning in tissue engineering

Abstract

Melt electrospinning has been attracting increasing attention recently as this process can be used to fabricate reproducible scaffolds for tissue engineering applications. The process of melt electrospinning first requires heating of a polymer until it becomes liquid. This liquid is then electrically charged and dispensed in an orderly fashion to create different types of microstructures. The size of the resulting fibers can be influenced by a number of parameters, including nozzle size, electric field applied, temperature, and method of collection. Melt electrospinning enables a high degree of control and reproducibility over the scaffold fabrication process compared with the more commonly used solution electrospinning. This chapter will review how the melt electrospinning process works, how it compares to solution electrospinning, and the application of melt electrospun scaffolds for engineering different types of tissue. Such scaffolds have been combined with cells and other biological components to replicate the tissue found in nerve, muscle, cartilage, bone, skin and tendon. Finally, it will discuss further applications of melt electrospinning in the field of tissue engineering and potential commercial applications.