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Seamless, axially aligned, fiber tubes, meshes, microbundles and gradient biomaterial constructs.

Authors :
Jose RR
Elia R
Firpo MA
Kaplan DL
Peattie RA
Source :
Journal of materials science. Materials in medicine [J Mater Sci Mater Med] 2012 Nov; Vol. 23 (11), pp. 2679-95. Date of Electronic Publication: 2012 Aug 14.
Publication Year :
2012

Abstract

A new electrospinning apparatus was developed to generate nanofibrous materials with improved organizational control. The system functions by oscillating the deposition signal (ODS) of multiple collectors, allowing significantly improved nanofiber control by manipulating the electric field which drives the electrospinning process. Other electrospinning techniques designed to impart deposited fiber organizational control, such as rotating mandrels or parallel collector systems, do not generate seamless constructs with high quality alignment in sizes large enough for medical devices. In contrast, the ODS collection system produces deposited fiber networks with highly pure alignment in a variety of forms and sizes, including flat (8 × 8 cm(2)), tubular (1.3 cm diameter), or rope-like microbundle (45 μm diameter) samples. Additionally, the mechanism of our technique allows for scale-up beyond these dimensions. The ODS collection system produced 81.6 % of fibers aligned within 5° of the axial direction, nearly a four-fold improvement over the rotating mandrel technique. The meshes produced from the 9 % (w/v) fibroin/PEO blend demonstrated significant mechanical anisotropy due to the fiber alignment. In 37 °C PBS, aligned samples produced an ultimate tensile strength of 16.47 ± 1.18 MPa, a Young's modulus of 37.33 MPa, and a yield strength of 7.79 ± 1.13 MPa. The material was 300 % stiffer when extended in the direction of fiber alignment and required 20 times the amount of force to be deformed, compared to aligned meshes extended perpendicular to the fiber direction. The ODS technique could be applied to any electrospinnable polymer to overcome the more limited uniformity and induced mechanical strain of rotating mandrel techniques, and greatly surpasses the limited length of standard parallel collector techniques.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
1573-4838
Volume :
23
Issue :
11
Database :
MEDLINE
Journal :
Journal of materials science. Materials in medicine
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
22890517
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10856-012-4739-7