Reducing Diameter and Variability of Electrospun Poly(ε-caprolactone) Nanofibers Using Charged Additives

Electrospun poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) nanofibers usually exhibit a wide range of fiber diameters in a typical preparation. Chloroform/ methanol binary solvent system was optimized to obtain thelowest fiber diameter distribution (FDD). However, the optimized composition of chloroform: methanol (3:1 v/v) led to micro scale fibers. Morever, lowering the solution concentration as a typical approach for decreasing the fiber diameter, resulted in a wide FDD. One way to alleviate this problem is to use Charged additives to further tailor the conductivity of the solution. Hence,additives including ammonium bromide salt and ionic surfactants were added to the optimized solvent system as an alternative for reducing the fiber diameter along with retaining the narrow FDD. It was found that only the cationic surfactant, dodecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (DTAB), reduced both diameter and variability of electrospun PCL nanofibers

Keywords:

electrospinning , poly(ε-caprolactone) , nanofiber , topography , salt , surfactant