Investigation of Effects of Electrospinning Parameters on Transcription Quality of Nanofibrous Bifurcated‐Tubular Scaffold

Abstract

AbstractA parametric sensitivity study to improve the transcription quality of the nanofibrous bifurcated‐tubular scaffold is performed to resolve the limited transcription quality issue in fabricating the scaffold based on hydrogel‐assisted electrospinning (GelES). To characterize the transcription quality of the fabricated 3D nanofibrous bifurcated‐tubular scaffold structure, two different measures of a coverage ratio (CR) and a corner profile fidelity (FC) are evaluated. Results of sensitivity analysis on CR, in which the design of experiments is based on the Taguchi method, revealed that the CR increases with decreasing tip‐to‐collector distance (TCD) and polycaprolactone concentration (CPCL). Moreover, among the processing parameters, namely, TCD, CPCL, and applied voltage (VA), the TCD is found to be the dominantly affecting processing parameter. Parametric study results show that FC increases with the branching angle (θB). By combining the optimal processing condition and a maximum θB of 120°, a leakage‐free 3D nanofibrous bifurcated‐tubular scaffold with a sharp carina is fabricated by the GelES.