As an example, polycaprolactone (PCL) fibers have been generated in the nanoscale when high boiling point solvents (like acetic acid) were used. The opposite relation applies for vapor pressure and dielectric constant, however. ![]() In general, lower boiling point solvents with low conductivity tend to form high fiber diameter. Fiber diameter will also be affected by boiling point and conductivity. To remedy this issue, a solvent with a lower vapor pressure could be selected. However, if it evaporates too fast, the polymer will clog the needle, thus disrupting the entire process. Using a solvent that has a low boiling point could result in complete evaporation. Chief among important solvent properties are boiling point, conductivity, and vapor pressure. Otherwise, generated fibers could be soaked wet and cause fused fiber-fiber bonding.Ī scientist must be mindful of the solvent properties to avoid undesirable defects. Ideally, the solvent in the polymer solution should completely evaporate during the electrospinning process. For example, cellulose acetate is a chemically modified polymer derived from cellulose when reacted with acetic acid.Ī solvent able to dissolve the polymer(s) and additive(s) while maintaining a homogeneous solution is always desired. Semi-synthetic polymers are derived from natural polymers but chemically treated to modify its chemical structure. Some advantages of synthetic polymers like polycaprolactone and nylon 6,6 are their low cost and ease to tailor polymer properties like mechanical properties, degradation rates and melting point. Synthetic polymers, as the name suggest, are man-made polymers that are engineered to fulfill application needs. Natural polymers like gelatin and collagen are isolated from natural sources and commonly used for applications like tissue engineering as they offer biocompatibility and biodegradability properties. There are mainly three types of polymers used in electrospinning classified depending on the source: natural, synthetic and semi-synthetic polymers. In many cases, secondary processes are also integrated with the electrospinning process so as to develop 3D TE scaffolds and overcome limitations in term of the nanofiber thickness.The electrospinning technique offers the advantage of processing a wide variety of materials including polymers and additives that are well mixed and/or suspended in solution. Various polymeric materials and their composites/blends have been successfully electrospun for tissue engineering (TE) scaffolds and they have been tabulated. Hence, this review will reveal the fundamental working principles of electrospinning process and the effect of electrospinning process parameters towards the nanofibers morphology. Different applications might require nanofibers with specific criteria to be produced. Although electrospinning is a simple process, there are still several parameters which need to be controlled or optimised in order to produce nanofibers with different characteristics. This is because nanofibers can replicate the structural design of natural human tissue at the nano-scale thus shortening the healing time. Most of the recent progress in tissue engineering has embarked on the use of nanofibers as tissue engineering scaffolds. ![]() The use of an electrospinning process in fabricating tissue engineering scaffolds has received great attention in recent years due to its simplicity and ability to fabricate ultrafine nanofibers. Electrospinning is a simple and efficient process in producing nanofibers.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |