Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

4787

Date

2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Biomedical Engineering

Committee Chair

Gary Lee Bowlin

Committee Member

Marko Z Radic

Committee Member

Richard A Smith

Abstract

Electrospinning, a fabrication technique used to create non-woven, porous templates from natural and synthetic polymers, is commonly used in tissue engineering because it is highly tailorable. However, traditional electrospinning creates restrictive pore sizes that limit the required cell migration. Therefore, tissue engineering groups have sought to enhance and regulate porosity of tissue engineering templates. Air-impedance electrospinning generates templates with tailorable, patterned areas of low and high density fiber deposition. In this preliminary study, polydioxanone and polydioxanone/fibrinogen air-impedance electrospun templates are fabricated and evaluated. This work demonstrates an improved air-impedance electrospinning system, consisting of a newly designed funnel equipped to hold changeable porous deposition plates and administer air flow in a confined and focused manner, with parameters that significantly increase porosity and maintain template integrity. These results are critical to template integrity and efficacy as parameters can be further optimized to induce the desired template porosity, strength, and texture fora given application.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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