The Electrospinning Process

While looking around on YouTube, I found a few interesting videos that highlight a few aspects of electrospinning:

The first video (below) shows an actual stream of nanofiber coming out of a charged syringe. At first, the stream is very well-defined, ; however, it soon becomes blurry due to rapid movement. This movement is an observable phenomenon in which the charged fiber forms a natural cone in an attempt to distance itself from the rest of its own identically charged length.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87uRQ7KwbB0

As a side note, just as the nanofiber solution leaves the charged syringe, another natural phenomenon can be observed in the form of a Taylor Cone (labeled in the picture below). A Taylor Cone is fascinating because it refers the the tendency for a droplet of liquid/solution to deform from its normal spherical shape in the presence of excessive charge. This deformity causes the solution to be stretched into a fiber that measures in the nanometer scale, and thus creates nanofibers.

http://www.chromacademy.com/Electrospray-Ionization-ESI-for-LC-MS.asp?tpm=1_1

One other video caught my interest because it adequately describes the process through which we have decided to electrospin. As shown in the previous YouTube video, a typical elctrospinning setup includes one charged syringe, and thus, only one jet of nanofiber. This setup works, but is not efficient because it could take ninety minutes or more to create enough fiber to have a workable sample. However, as shown in the video below at time 1:50, various groups are in the process of designing a more efficient method of electrospinning. We have taken this type of design as our model, and hope to optimize it for the most efficient production of quality nanofibers. While the segment of the video from 1:50 - 2:12 deals with the basis behind our design, the rest of the video provides a general overview to the entire proces of nanofiber production.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhZ2u_tZFP4&feature=related