Fabrication of cellular poly-∈-caprolactone (PCL) scaffolds by precision extruding deposition process

Many applications in tissue engineering require scaffolds with specific micro- and macroscopic geometries and internal architectures in order to provide desirable biological and biophysical functions for intended tissue. Freeform fabrication has often been used as an effective process to produce such required scaffolds with designed structures and properties. This paper reports our study on exploring a novel precision extruding deposition (PED) method to directly fabricate cellular-like poly-∈-caprolactone (PCL) scaffolds. Scaffolds with designed pore size at about 250 μm and at different strut orientations were fabricated. Results of the fabrication and the SEM optical micrographics evaluation for the structural formability and process-ability of as-fabricated scaffolds are presented.