Electric and non electric assisted electrospinning. Electro- and non- electro assisted spinning technologies

The use of fibers has gained attention in biomedical applications, due to their ability to mimic the extracellular matrix of native tissues and more accurately controlling the release of biomolecules via in order to enhance the regeneration process of damage tissues. In tissue engineering, fibres can be successfully assembled to form micor/nanostructured scaffolds with peculiar topographic cues and composition suitable to support cells to growth and proliferation in vitro. In the last years, different strategies have been developed to fabricate micro- and sub-micrometric fibers for large scale productions, including phase-separation, self-assembly, melt spinning, electrospinning and air-jet spinning. In this chapter, the electrospinning technique will be described as the most widely used technique to produce fibers because allows fabricating fibers at different size scale by setting a large combination of process parameters, solution properties and environmental factors. Moreover, air-jet spinning or solution blow spinning will be introduced as an emerging technique that allows manipulating polymer solutions by the use of air or gas pressure to produce fibers.