Parameters’ Investigation of Tubular Electrospinning System for the Fabrication of Polyurethane (PU)/Polycaprolactone (PCL) Small Hollow Tube for Vascular Engineering’s Applications

Electrospinning is a preferable technique to fabricate scaffold, which have the ability to mimic the structure of extracellular matrix. Small-diameter vascular grafts have been developed by co-electrospinning PCL and elastic PU. Among the suitable materials used to engineer small diameter vascular prosthesis, the polycaprolactone (PCL) and polyurethane (PU) are two appropriate candidates for artificial blood vessels application approved by Food and Drug Administration for biomedical applications with good mechanical properties and high biocompatibility. This electospun graft was adopted with long degradation time and high mechanical strength. PU/PCL nanofibrous membrane were successfully fabricated by the electrospinning system design by Biomedical Engineering School, International University, Ho Chi Minh National University (BME-IU). However, the fabrication of electrospun hollow tube at small diameter was affected by many parameters including applied voltage, distance from needle to collector, pumping speed, collector’s rotation speed and the type of solvent. This research studies the parameters’ effect of tubular electrospun system designed by BME-IU on the morphological properties of these vascular scaffolds using SEM and diameter analysis.