Alignment and Diameter of Electrospun PEO Fibers

Abstract

The method of electro-spinning fibers is useful, due to the extreme similarities to fibers in the body, and knowledge about electrospun fiber properties can be implemented in such research areas as tissue engineering, tissue scaffolding, and intracellular matrices. Here we report the alignment and diameter determination of PEO fibers following research by Liu and Dzenis (2008 Nanotechnology). We used a two-collector plate method to align fibers and examined the diameter and alignment of fibers formed from various percentages of PEO and working distances from tip to collector, holding the collector plate separation fixed. We found the greatest fiber alignment using a working distance of 40 cm from tip to collector. An 8% PEO in water solution with a working distance of 40 cm formed aligned fibers with an average angle of deviation from the alignment direction of 1.9 +/- 1.2 degrees and the narrowest distribution. The smallest angle and narrowest distribution of angles was also seen with a working distance of 40 cm using 6 % PEO in water. The diameter of electrospun PEO fibers showed a subtle non-significant increase in diameter as working distance increased from 20 cm to 40 cm. However, the diameter was significantly dependent on the PEO concentration with 8 % PEO producing fibers with diameters of 245 nm +/- 50 nm and 6 % PEO producing fibers with diameters of 181 nm +/- 40 nm.In the future we will use these result to compare the mechanical properties of individual aligned electrospun fibers with their nonaligned counterpart.