Aligned Polyvinylpyrrolidone Nanofibers with Advanced Electrospinning for Biomedical Applications

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Electrospinning is a highly effective method in order to generate nano-scaled fibers. In conventional electrospinning technique, geometry of nanofibers are mostly random due to the chaotic behavior of polymer jet.

OBJECTIVE: Purpose of this study is to produce aligned nanofibers from PVP polymers with advanced electrospinning technique in order to be used in a potential novel sensor applications, tissue regeneration and engineering.

METHODS: In this study, by using finite hollow cylinder focusing electrodes, an external electrostatic field is created. With these electrodes, it is aimed to decrease whipping instability of polymer jet. In addition, it is also investigated that the alignment ratio of nanofibers by using conductive parallel electrodes which placed through jet trajectory.

RESULTS: In conclusion, with the effect of electrical field created by cylinder electrodes, radius of the fiber dispersion on the collector was able to be reduced and aligned nanofibers were successfully produced by using electrical field generated from the parallel plates.

CONCLUSIONS: Radius of the fiber dispersion on the collector is 9.95 mm and fiber diameters varied between 800 nm and 3 mu m. Additionally, alignment ratio of the fibers is determined with ImageJ software. These alignment of nanofibers can be used in tissue engineering applications and sensor applications.