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Electrospinning (ES) fabrication first appeared in 1897 and was subsequently patented for a range of textile applications.A 1969 article by Taylor led to research into the use of ES fabrication technology for a number of applications aimed at creating polymeric materials with micron- to nanometer-scale features that showed high surface-area-volume ratios. Since then, ES has been used to fabricate fuel cells, generators and photocatalytic surfaces. In addition, ES can be used to prevent degradation of perovskite solar cell layers and to pattern nanoscale polarizers by photolithography. Biomedical applications of electrospun materials include enzyme immobilization, sensors, tissue engineering, wound healing, and drug delivery.ES fibrous materials have also been used to fabricate nanomaterials for applications ranging from energy conversion to pharmaceuticals and exhibiting desirable material properties such as high strength or high modulus.
The main point of this paper
ES materials have a wide range of applications:
ES (electrospinning) materials have a wide range of applications in basic chemistry, materials synthesis and industrial applications.
ES equipment iterations:
ES equipment has gone through several iterations to accommodate specialized material manufacturing.
Melt ES allows the avoidance of solvents during processing.
Surface and structural changes:
The deposition surface is altered to produce aligned structures that enhance charge transport, polarized light emission, absorption, photovoltaic properties, and optoelectronic applications.
Aligned structures are also relevant to the biomedical industry, providing scaffolds for directed cell growth and guided cell differentiation.
Polymer fiber alignment technology:
Polymer fiber alignment is achieved using rotating collector drums with parallel gap electrodes or counter electrodes.
Electric field manipulation is used to guide fiber deposition and material spot size.
Passive approach to electric field manipulation:
Use of copper rings as lens elements to suppress spurious motion.
Use of aperture plates to reduce fiber felt spot size.
Miniaturization and configuration modification of the ES system:
Miniaturization of the ES system was achieved, allowing it to be handheld and deposited on any surface.
New iterative ES fabrication techniques:
Precise control of electrospun fiber deposition through the use of multiple high voltage power supplies and waveform generators.
Generate sinusoidal control signals in LabVIEW to control fiber deposition in two dimensions to form woven polymer fabrics and complex shapes.
Advantages of woven polymer fabrics:
Advantages of strength, dimension, flexibility, porosity, elongation and multi-directional breaking strength.
Can be used for long-term drug release and tissue simulation.
Electrospinning (ES) technology has a wide range of applications:
Electrospinning technology has applications in a variety of fields such as the fabrication of biomedical devices, tissue regeneration scaffolds, light manipulation, energy conversion, and material deposition as a platform for nanoscale catalytic growth.
Technological Limitations and Innovations:
One of the major limitations facing electrospinning technology is random fiber deposition due to chaotic motion of the polymer stream as it approaches the deposition surface.
Past solutions have included changing the electrode shape, using multidimensional electrodes or pins, deposition on a loom, hand-held electrospinning equipment, or manipulation of the electric field through lens elements or apertures to fabricate structures or materials with precisely localized mesoscale morphology.
Multiplexed ES system:
This study demonstrates an ES system containing multiple high-voltage power sources that can be independently controlled by control algorithms implemented in LabVIEW for unique deposition control, called “multiplexed ES”.
COMSOL Multiphysics® software simulation:
Use COMSOL Multiphysics® software to simulate the electric fields generated in this new ES system.
Fabrication of Braided Fiber Materials:
Demonstrates the fabrication of woven fiber materials without the need for complex deposition surfaces using a multi-power system.
Fabrication and Parametric Analysis of Electrospun Toroids:
Time-varying sinusoidal inputs were used to fabricate electrospun toroids, where the outer diameter of the toroid was insensitive to the frequency used in the deposition process, while the inner diameter was inversely proportional to the frequency, resulting in an increase in the overall width of the toroid with increasing frequency.
Precise control of fiber deposition during the ES process enables novel device designs and promotes new applications and functionality of the polymer materials produced. In this work, we fabricated an ES system containing four conventional electrodes, each controlled by a separate power supply, which we refer to as a multiplexed ES. The sinusoidal control signal is amplified by a high-voltage power supply that varies the electrostatic field strength according to the electrode voltages, allowing the user to accurately control the fiber deposition and mesoscale structure. Using the geometry and separation distance of the electrodes in the multiplexed ES system, we were able to determine an analytical model of the electrostatic force acting on the fiber as shown in Equation 6. Equipment configuration, material properties, and applied voltage are important in determining the electrostatic force. We also used COMSOL Multiphysics® software as a visualization tool to display the electrostatic field controlled by the multiplexed ES system, and the results show that the corresponding electrode voltages in the model match the predicted values when a high voltage input is supplied to a specific electrode.
