It is important to control the degradation rate of a tissue-engineered scaffold so that the scaffold will degrade in an appropriate\r\nmatching rate as the tissue cells grow in. A set of potential tissue engineering scaffolds with controllable rates of degradation were\r\nfabricated from blends of two biocompatible, biodegradable L-tyrosine-based polyurethanes (PEG1000-HDI-DTH and PCL1250-\r\nHDI-DTH) using the electrospinning process. The scaffolds were characterized by mat morphology, fiber diameter, diameter\r\ndistribution, pore size, and hydrolytic degradation behavior. The majority of the scaffolds, despite having radically different\r\nchemical compositions, possessed no statistical difference with pore sizes and fiber diameters. The degradation pattern observed\r\nindicated that scaffolds consisting of a greater mass percentage of PEG1000-HDI-DTH decayed to a greater extent than those\r\ncontaining higher concentrations of PCL1250-HDI-DTH. The degradation rates of the electrospun scaffolds were much higher than\r\nthose of the thin cast films with same compositions. These patterns were consistent through all blends. The work demonstrates one\r\npractical method of controlling the degradation of biopolymer scaffolds without significantly affecting an intended morphology.
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