Needle-punched fibrous polycaprolactone scaffold for bone tissue engineering

In the present work a three dimensional composite scaffolds for bone tissue engineering were created by a carding and needle-punch processes. Highly porous nonwoven fabrics were obtained from PCL and PCL/n-HAp cut fibers without the use of any chemicals during the manufacturing process. The properties of nonwoven scaffolds were examined by SEM, FTIR, DSC and TGA methods. The average pore diameter as well as the pore size distribution of nonwoven fabrics were measured by a capillary flow porometry. The obtained results suggest that needle-punching method can be used to produce highly porous microstructures with an interconnected pore network.