title: High-throughput and high-yield fabrication of uniaxially-aligned chitosan-based nanofibers by centrifugal electrospinning.
abstract: The inability to produce large quantities of nanofibers has been a primary obstacle in advancement and commercialization of electrospinning technologies, especially when aligned nanofibers are desired. Here, we present a high-throughput centrifugal electrospinning (HTP-CES) system capable of producing a large number of highly-aligned nanofiber samples with high-yield and tunable diameters. The versatility of the design was revealed when bead-less nanofibers were produced from copolymer chitosan/polycaprolactone (C-PCL) solutions despite variations in polymer blend composition or spinneret needle gauge. Compared to conventional electrospinning techniques, fibers spun with the HTP-CES not only exhibited superior alignment, but also better diameter uniformity. Nanofiber alignment was quantified using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) analysis. In addition, a concave correlation between the needle diameter and resultant fiber diameter was identified. This system can be easily scaled up for industrial production of highly-aligned nanofibers with tunable diameters that can potentially meet the requirements for various engineering and biomedical applications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
authors.forename: Ariane E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Erickson
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
authors.forename: Dennis
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Edmondson
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
authors.forename: Fei-Chien
authors.initials: FC
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
authors.forename: Dave
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wood
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gong
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
authors.forename: Sheeny Lan
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Levengood
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA. Electronic address: mzhang@u.washington.edu.
authors.forename: Miqin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D002498:Centrifugation; D048271:Chitosan / Q000737:chemistry*; D004560:Electricity; D057139:Nanofibers / Q000737:chemistry*; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D009339:Needles
chemical_list: D048271:Chitosan
keywords: Alignment; Centrifugal electrospinning; High-throughput; Nanofibers