Hi, I'm attempting to produce aligned PCL fibres by electrospinning onto a rotating mandrel (up to 1500rpm, r = 25mm). Rather than exhibiting any form of obvious alignment the only effect seems to be 'micro-coiling' (don't really know how else to describe it) instead of smooth/straight fibres. Does anyone know what could cause this or which parameters I could alter to prevent it, please? By the way I'm using chloroform/DMF as the solvent and spinning at 14%wt.
when an elastic rope is fed uniformly toward a horizontal plane, it first buckles and eventually coils into a spool that is deposited onto the plane. A similar phenomenon also occurs when a slender viscous fluid jet impinges onto a horizontal plane and leads to the deposition of a liquid rope coil. In either, although the scale of the coil and the speed of coiling are determined by the balance between the internal elastic or viscous forces that resist deformation and a combination of inertia and gravity, the basic phenomenology is a consequence of geometry which favors bending deformations over stretching modes.
Was your solution proper viscous? what was the electric field you have applied?
In one paper they have mentioned 12kV for PLA-PCL nanofibers. And the solvents for dissolving PCL are Chloroform:methanol (3:1), toluene:methanol (1:1) and dichloromethane:methanol (3:1). So try that, may be it will help you.
Electrospinning of PCL polymer in a mixed solvent of chloroform/methanol (4:1) with 10% concentration on a rotating drum with speed of 3000 rpm yield highly aligned nanofibers. with this condition i have synthesised PCL aligned and random nanofibrous scaffolds for my tissue engeenering project
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