Hello, I have a basic, closed electrospinning setup that has been modified several times. I noticed that turning off the power supply does not immediately stop the solution in the needle tip from stretching. So I thought blocking the needle tip just before turning off the high voltage power supply will do the trick. I checked my samples under an optical microscope and noticed that there were still sprayed droplets on top of my continuous fibers. I'm not sure what else could be the cause since I had a stable jet coming out of the syringe tip.
Any suggestions? Thank you very much
A visually stable jet does not always translate into nice fibers. Do you have the droplets on both sides of the scaffolds? If you have access to a SEM that would be great. There you can see directly if they are only a few on the surface. Starting and stopping the process can lead to some heterogeneities. Horizontal spinning helps in avoiding getting them on your scaffold.
Dear Dr. Simonet, thank you for your response. I have a horizontal setup for my electrospinning experiment. I am trying to select certain samples for SEM analysis and thought samples with parameters producing a stable jet would appear to have a better morphology. Most of the time, the jet appears to be “flashing” and bends erratically. I’m wondering if there’s a way to reduce these instabilities upon turning off the process. A colleague suggested turning off the syring pump first until the contents inside the tip empty out but I’m still looking for more ideas.
Letting the tip run empty will also add variation to your scaffold, e.g. fiber diameter. You could use syringe pumps that can also withdraw.
Firstly, which type of solvent is used for electrospinning? If you used aqueous solvent than you've to take Care About Applied voltages, Distance and Flow rate.
In aqueous solvents,
When distance is small, flow rate is high and Applied voltage is optimum then Fibers and droplets both are observed.
So you have to check your flow rate and distance values and optimised it carefully.
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