Elevated temperature electrospinning of aqueous gelatin solution and crosslinking for tissue engineering applications

ECM is useful in providing growth and support to the cells as well as engineered tissues. There are various techniques for producing artificial matrix constructs to simulate the ECM. These include wet spinning, phase separation, dry spinning, and electrospinning. Electrospinning has advantages over other techniques as it can produce scaffolds which have a high surface area to volume ratio. Electrospinning is also capable of producing nanofibers from synthetic polymers as well as from natural polymers. Gelatin has been electrospun from several different solvents. In this work we have chosen water as the solvent because of its inherent non-cytotoxicity. When gelatin is dissolved in water it will form a semi-solid gel. Heating the solution will prevent the formation of gel. Electrospun gel fibers will dissolve in water and physiological fluids. To overcome the gelation, an apparatus has been constructed that allows gel solution to be electrospun at elevated temperature. As shown in Figure 1, the apparatus consists of a small insulated enclosure large enough to fit the electrospinning syringe. Heated air is supplied by a heating coil that is connected to a low pressure pump. The heating coil is connected to the Variac by which air can be heated in proportion to the voltage. The Variac is connected to the temperature controller which can turn the Variac on and off relative to a set temperature..