Facilely fabricating PCL nanofibrous scaffolds with hierarchical pore structure for tissue engineering

Highly hierarchical pore structure (macro-micro-nano) for biomimetic nanofibrous scaffolds could efficiently enhance cell infiltration and tissue formation. However, it is difficult to prepare these structures by using traditional electrostatic spinning techniques. Here, we report a facile method to fabricate polycaprolactone (PCL) nanofibrous scaffolds with multi-scale pore structure by simple phase separation. By employing water-dioxane as solvents and tris spheres as macropore template, PCL nanofibrous scaffolds with pores 300-800 mu m, 1-10 mu m and 100-1000 nm in diameter can be facilely produced. All scaffolds possess controlled nanofibrous morphology and porosity (90-98%). This scaffold may provide promising applications in tissue engineering and drug delivery. (c) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.