Synthesis of high porous electrospun hollow TiO2 nanofibers for bone tissue engineering application

•Coaxial electrospinning is used to upload sufficient amount of CaCO3 through TiO2 fibers.•Salt etching technique is used to fabricate porous TiO2 hollow tube.•Kebabs like CPC were formed on nonporous composite nanorod during SBF incubation.•Spherical CPC were formed on porous TiO2 nanotube during SBF incubation.•Better cell spread on the cell culture was observed for porous TiO2 nanotube in comparison to others. Highly porous, hollow TiO2 nanofibers (NFs) were fabricated through coaxial nozzle electrospinning using a polymer sol–gel solution of CaCO3 and TiO2 precursor. Hollow and porous TiO2 NFs were obtained by etching CaCO3 on calcined TiO2 fibers using dilute HCl. Characterization of the as-synthesized materials were performed using FE-SEM and XRD before and after 24h of bio-mineralization. The in vitro cell culture test was performed using MC3T3-E1 osteoblast cells to assess cell response of the different NFs. The results suggested that as-synthesized porous nanotubes have better biocompatibility for bone regeneration and implantations compared to other nonporous TiO2 nanorods or NFs.