Fabrication of Nonwoven Coaxial Fiber Meshes by Electrospinning

There is a great need for biodegradable polymer scaffolds that can regulate the delivery of bioactive factors such as drugs, plasmids, and proteins. Coaxial electrospinning is a novel technique that is currently being explored to create such polymer scaffolds by embedding within them aqueous-based biological molecules. In this study, we evaluated the influence of various processing parameters such as sheath polymer concentration, core polymer concentration and molecular weight, and salt ions within the core polymer on coaxial fiber morphology. The sheath polymer used in this study was poly(epsilon-caprolactone) (PCL), and the core polymer was poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG). We examined the effects of the various processing parameters on core diameters, total fiber diameters, and sheath thicknesses of coaxial microfibers using a 2(4) full factorial statistical model. The maximum increase in total fiber diameter was observed with increase in sheath polymer (PCL) concentration from 9 to 11 wt% (0.49 +/- 0.03 mu m) and salt concentration within the core from 0 to 500 mu M (0.38 +/- 0.03 mu m). The core fiber diameter was most influenced by the sheath and core polymer (PCL and PEG, respectively) concentrations, the latter of which increased from 200 to 400 mg/mL (0.40 +/- 0.01 mu m and 0.36 +/- 0.01 mu m, respectively). The core polymer (PEG) concentration had a maximal negative effect on sheath thickness (0.40 +/- 0.03 mu m), while salt concentration had the maximal positive effect (0.28 +/- 0.03 mu m). Molecular weight increases in core polymer (PEG) from 1.0 to 4.6 kDa caused moderate increases in total and sheath fiber diameters and sheath thicknesses. These experiments provide important information that lays the foundation required for the synthesis of coaxial fibers with tunable dimensions.