Novel Method of Electrospinning; Rotating Dual Electrode Collector Design

When growing cells in an artificial scaffold, tissue engineering relies heavily on recreating the environment found in the original extracellular matrix (ECM). Since cell-to-ECM interactions occur on the nano-scale, the need has arisen for nanofibers. Electrospinning is one process used to create such nanofibers. However, due to the physical nature of the process, simultaneous control over the formed fibers' diameter, alignment and the ability to produce large multilayered fibrous scaffolds is problematic. The research presented here describes a novel method of electrospinning onto a rotating grounded, separated, two-electrode collector. A Matrix Laboratory (MATLAB) model of forces affecting the depositing nanofibers is compared to experimental results for both the static and rotating collectors. The as-formed fibers were analyzed in terms of their diameter, alignment, layering, and ease of isolation.