Dear Vivek,

I am wondering how does your scaffold look like? And how much of ethanol you use for collecting the sample? Those parameters are quite important to propose any method for removal of your scaffold.

Best regards,

Michał

Hey Michał,

My plan is to fabricate a 3D scaffold which has a thickness of at least 5 mm after freeze drying using the wet electrospinning technique. The collector height is about 1 cm with a dia of about 4 cm, which is filled to the brim with ethanol. I am wondering how to separate the scaffold from ethanol into a separate container before freeze drying, or if I should just freeze dry it with the ethanol because the scaffold might collapse if it wasn't for the ethanol. I hope that makes sense.

Thanks,

Vivek

Dear Vivek,

I think I understand you well. So, probably, ethanol from the collector is responsible for keeping the scaffold in 3D shape. I was thinking about your problem, and I found some kind of the solution. And then, I found a paper where my idea is described (it is hard to develop something new :)):

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167577X08010537

They just frozen the sample and then put it to freeze-drying process. I think this might be the best way. However, since I am pretty aware that ethanol is hard to freeze, you will need to use good freezer with temp. below -80 deg. of Celsius.

Best wishes,

Michał

Dear Michał,

Yes, you are right. The ethanol collector is for the scaffold to retain it's 3D shape. I've seen this paper before, and like you  mention I would need to use a liquid nitrogen freeze dryer to remove the ethanol. The other option would be to dilute it as much as possible to bring up the freezing point. This might affect the 3D structure of the scaffold. Anyway let me see how it goes.

Thanks,

Vivek