I have a problem with the electrospinning of polycaprolactone. I use a mixture of dichlorometane and dimethylformamide to solubilize PCL and I use glass syringes for the electrospinning. During the process, which last for about 1 hour, it happens that at the interface of plunger/syringe the solution dries and the plunger stuck within the syringe. How can I avoid or prevent that?
Thank you!
you can decrease the dichloromethane and concentration of polymer or increase the power supply to push forward them. changing the orifice might be useful. changing the temperature is also useful.
This is mainly related to the high volatility of employed solvents, therefore, if you manipulate the solvent ratio in favor of the less volatile solvent, you could probably solve this issue. Increasing the voltage might not work, since it could disrupt the cone-jet structure at the tip of the nozzle and negatively affect the flight time and therefore, solvent evaporation from the produced fibers.
Apply minimum amount of heat to avoid the solution becoming dry. Search about suitable heat source is required
First you can change the physical parameters like voltage and distance between tip and collector. If these things don't work you can change either solvent concentration or the solvent itself. You can also reduce the polymer concentration.
I would recommend the use of airtight glass syringes, so DCM cannot evaporate via the syringe plunger.
Try to ensure the solution is very mixed and not become so viscous. You can use ultrsonic probe to make any viscous particles in solution be soluble. Furthermore, try to change rate of spinning and voltage if it not work.
Hi
This problem will probably be solved by increasing the amount of solvent.
I would suggest the use of a non-ionic surfactant, like Triton X-100. It works quit well with PLA and PHB.
What was the ratio of DCM: DMF. It might be because of more DMF content.
Its likely that the flow the polymeric solution is at a pace where the equipment gets clogged. This is often the case for many polymers such as PCL. We’ve had prior experience with resolving this issue. Essentially the needle or nozzle where the solution is extracting from gets blocked after a time. We would recommend using certain nozzles much like the ones we developed in our lab that remove the clogging issue and speeds up production. They are hybrid nozzles that possess high throughput by creating multiple jet streams but also maintain fine fiber diameter control.