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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Influence of electrohydrodynamic jetting parameters

on the morphology of PCL scaffolds

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Hang Liu , Sanjairaj Vijayavenkataraman , Dandan Wang , Linzhi Jing , Jie Sun 1,4* and Kai He
1 National University of Singapore (Suzhou) Research Institute, Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou 215123, China
2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117575, Singapore
3 Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117543, Singapore
4 Department of Industrial Design, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou 215123, China

Abstract: One of the important constituents in tissue engineering is scaffold, which provides structural support and
suitable microenvironment for the cell attachment, growth and proliferation. To fabricate micro/nano structures for soft
tissue repair and three-dimensional (3D) cell culture, the key is to improve fibre-based scaffold fabrication. Electrohy-
drodynamic (EHD) jetting is capable of producing and orientating submicron fibres for 3D scaffold fabrication. In this
work, an EHD-jetting system was developed to explore the relationship between vital processing parameters and fibre
characteristics. In this study, polycaprolactone (PCL) solution prepared by dissolving PCL pellets in acetic acid was
used to fabricate the scaffolds. The influence of voltage, motorized stage speed, solution feed rate, and solution concen-
tration on fibre characteristics and scaffold pattern were studied. Morphology of the EHD-jetted PCL fibres and scaf-
folds were analysed using optical microscope images and scanning electron microscope (SEM) images. Multi-layer
scaffolds with the varied coiled pattern were fabricated and analysed. Cell attachment and proliferation have to be in-
vestigated in the future by further cell culture studies on these multi-layer coiled scaffolds.
Keywords: electrohydrodynamic jetting, 3D bioprinting, polycaprolactone scaffolds, soft-tissue, tissue engineering

*Correspondence to: Jie Sun, Department of Industrial Design, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou 215123, China; Email:
jie.sun@xjtlu.edu.cn

Received: November 14, 2016; Accepted: December 14, 2016; Published Online: January 6, 2017
Citation: Liu H, Vijayavenkataraman S, Wang D, et al., 2017, Influence of electrohydrodynamic jetting parameters on the morpho
Oogy of PCL scaffolds. International Journal of Bioprinting, vol.3(1): 72–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.18063/IJB.2017.01.009.

NOMENCLATURE pair and three-dimensional (3D) cell culture in rege-
nerative medicine, tremendous efforts have been made
C Concentration (wt%) to improve fibre based scaffold fabrication. Tradition-
D Nozzle to substrate distance (mm) al scaffold fabrication methods, such as solvent cast-
FR Feed Rate (μL/min) ing and particulate leaching, gas foaming, phase sepa-
SS Stage Speed (mm/s) ration, melt moulding, and freeze drying suffer from
T Temperature (°C) many inherent limitations, including the inability to
V Voltage (kV) precisely control pore size, pore geometry, pore inter-
connectivity, and spatial distribution of pores. Other
relatively recent scaffold fabrication methods, such as
1. Introduction
fused deposition modelling (FDM) and extrusion me-
To fabricate micro/nano structures for soft tissue re- thod, suffer from the limitations of low resolution and

Influence of electrohydrodynamic jetting parameters on the morphology of PCL scaffolds. © 2017 Hang Liu, et al. This is an Open Access article
distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/li-
censes/by-nc/4.0/), permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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