Pressure-assisted spinning: A versatile and economical, direct fibre to scaffold spinning methodology

Spinning composite polymer fibres by means of electric fields has been investigated for well over a century. These spun fibres have been explored across many areas of research, spanning the physical to the life sciences; however, electrospinning has the hazardous nature of the high voltage at the spinning needle. We demonstrate here a competing direct fibre to scaffold preparation method, completely determined by an applied pressure. Our technique reported here removes the hazardous high-voltage element from the fibre/scaffold formation technique and has the ability to form uniaxial fibres and scaffolds comparable to those fabricated by electrospinning. We refer to this fibre generation approach as "pressure-assisted spinning (PAS)", which will have a tremendous impact in a range of applications, spanning the physical through to the life sciences. PAS joins the techniques for fibre to scaffold generation with a view to significantly and globally contributing to the micro- and nanosciences. © 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.