Estimating glucose diffusivities in electrospun fibers using diffusion cell experiments and image processing

Electrospinning is a common technique, which is applied for fabrication of scaffold for tissue engineering bioreactors. For making the scaffolds with desired morphology, a thorough understanding of the effects of the key parameters on nutrient transport in the scaffold are needed. Furthermore, it is necessary to have methods that predict the nutrient transport behavior. To address these issues partially, we prepare electro-spun polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffolds with different pore morphology by using different electrospinning duration and polymer solution flow rate. . Subsequently, the glucose diffusivities of these scaffolds imbibed in cell culture medium (CCM) and water are then measured. It is observed that the electrospinning process is reproducible and fiber-fiber space and fiber diameter are both increased with higher PCL flow rate. The fiber-fiber distance and fiber diameter are also slightly increased if the flow rate is increased by the usage of two syringes for injecting the polymer solution instead of a single cylinder.