Design of vascular prostheses by melt electrospinning-structural characterizations.

The general objective of this research is to use melt electrospinning to design and fabricate semibiodegradable and multilayered fibrous structures that have potential applications for cardiovascular implants, including small-diameter (<6 mm) blood vessels replacements. In the first stage of the study, as described in this article, flat fibrous structures from polypropylene and polylactide polymers were fabricated. The fabrication stage was necessary to determine the effect of the polymers' melt mass flow rate, melt electrospinning processing parameters (as a working distance and spinning voltage) on the resulting fiber diameter and on other physical and structural properties of the fibrous structures. An analysis of the effects of the processing parameters on the fabrication of the fibrous structures and the selection of the appropriate polymers for the final multilayered tubular structure were also performed. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]