The ability to fabricate electrospun fiber mats into 3 dimension (3D) form would expand potential use of electrospun fiber beyond its current limit, especially for tissue engineering application. Several concepts had been proposed and investigated including use of porogen, long fiber collecting time and multiple sizes fiber. Here we proposed a new single step process, called dual polarity co-electrospinning process, for fabrication of 3D and other fibrous structure. The concept was to electrospin polymer solution using positive and negatives polarity simultaneously, as shown in figure 1.   By using poly(e-caprolactone) (PCL) as a model polymer, and depending on fiber collecting scheme and spinning parameter, we obtained fibers with bulk appearance in form of a 3D fiber mats and a yarn with loose and fluffy appearance, as shown in figure 2.   These unique fiber structures would be useful for many applications particularly in particle and liquid separation, catalyst support, sensor, environmental and biomedical applications.

Development of 3D-fibrous structure and yarn via dual polarity Co-electrospinning process

247th National Meeting (2014)

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