Electrospinning of PLA for tissue engineering: Effect of operational parameters on fiber diameters

Development of tissue engineering scaffold has recently focused on the use of electrospun biocompatible polymers. In this article nonofibers were successfully fabricated from PLA via electrospinning. Important electrospinning. parameters such as solvent, concentration of PLA solutions and electric field intensity were examined to investigate the effects on morphology of the PLA nanofibers. PLA was not soluble in DMF and electrospinning of it in THF and Chloroform/THF (3:1) was not favorable. By DMF addition to chloroform, conductivity increased and the average diameter of the fibers decreased from 3080nm to 524nm. In invistigation of the effect of concentration, by increasing the PLA concentration above 10%, beads-free and continuous fibrers were obtained. The average fiber diameter generally increased from 524nm to 960nm when the concentrations of PLA solution increased from 10% to 15% due to higher viscosity resisting the extension of the jet. Also it was indicated that by increasing voltage could lead to fiber with small diameter and uniform distribution. SEM images of 15% PLA have shown that when the voltage increased from 15 kV to 25 kV, average diameters of the fibers decreased from 1024 nm to 760 nm.