Hi,
I have been having issues with getting my collagen solution to electrospin.
I have been using lyophilized collagen in acetic acid to try and obtain electrospun fibres. I have tried using acetic acid at 10-40% and collagen at 0.5-2.5% concentrations. I am however still not able to obtain fibres from the solutions made. I have adjusted flow rates (0.2-5ml/hr), voltage (12-24kV) and distances (10-20cm) in an attempt to obtain fibres with still no luck.
At the moment the taylor cone produced is unstable and the solution flows from the needle in clusters (rather like electrospraying) though I use a homogenizer to fully mix the collagen solution. Some of the solution reaches the colelctor place but in large clusters and remains wet (see photos).
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Moresche.B
Dear Moresche Bartley, adjusting the operating parameters is crucial, please refer to the following documents. My Regards
https://doi.org/10.1021/bm015533u
DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.73581
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6171670/
https://doi.org/10.1155/2011/348268
10.1016/j.biomaterials.2005.06.024
10.1021/bm015533u
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biomaterials.2005.08.004
See this link
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/taylor-cone
Due you want pure collagen ? If not try using a polymer with Higher mol weight like PEO (high mol wt PEO 500kDA or more) biopolymers are a nightmare to espin let alone collagen, silk and chitosan. Good luck, Let us know how it went.
Hi Saadi Bin Qasim ,
Thank you for your response.
The aim of my project is to dual-core electrospin PCL and Collagen into individual layers, therefore the collagen must be able to electrospin on its own. I have however out of curiosity tried to electrospinning a PCL and Collagen mixture with still no luck with obtaining fibres. The collagen simply changes the chemistry of the PCL and makes it too 'wet' to extrude properly into fibres. I may also add that I have no problem electropsinning PCL by itself. It appears the collagen is the problem.
Hi Abdelkader BOUAZIZ ,
I am familiar with most of these papers however thank you for your help.
Hi Jamil Khan
,Thank you for your help.
As I have mentioned previously, the aim of my project is to dual-core electrospin PCL and Collagen into 2 individual layers, therefore the collagen must be able to electrospin on its own. I know that this is challenging however I have seen a few successful papers with electrospinning pure collagen in acetic acid.
Like this one or example:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/mrs-communications/article/green-electrospinning-of-a-collagenhydroxyapatite-composite-nanofibrous-scaffold/C1E8BD118A6DAC34F555402A10C4324D
I have tweaked the parameters on several occasions with still no luck. I am hoping that somebody may point out a crucial step that I might be missing. I have noticed that a few collagen electrospinning papers used HFIP however it's not recommended due to cytotoxicity and collagen denaturation.
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