Do you have some protocol??? I'm using alginate as core and PCL as shell. I obtain some fibres but i'm not sure if are core-shell fibres.
I dont have experience with fibers but can suggest a way to check if you have core-shell or not.
1. Water contact angle (WCA): Check contact angles for fiber mat made of pure alginate, pure PCL and the supposedly core-shell fibers. Make sure all fibers including the pure ones are made using the core-shell needle in order to keep the thickness of fibers constant. A coparision WCA of these mats should give an idea.
2. Surface charge meaurement: Other option will be conductometric titration to measure the surface charge of fibers. Aginate should be anionic (carboxyls titrated with NaOH) so a core-shell structure will obviosly show up in surface charge measurments.
Best wishes
If you fibers are of substantial diameter, 3~5 microns or more, you can try using optical microscope. The light coming through will be refracted at a different angle compare to light coming more the side edges which contain a single component.
Having said that, they best way to know core-shell architecture is to stain your fibers and do a TEM. Its the most conclusive method
You can easily find out if you have a core-shell structure or not with TEM
Hi Juliana, please see this article which details the use of a coaxial extrusion needle for alginate core, pcl sheath printing, including testing with cells in the core.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24658021
In coaxial Electrospinning of mixed solutions of natural and synthetic polymers one of the most important factors is adjusted folw rate of core and shell solutions, Won, J. J et al shows that applied voltage is the most important factor in electrospinning of PVA/Albumin. it depend on the type of polymers, parameters such as concentration, flow rate and applied voltage.
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