Turning ideas into products
What is Electrospinning?
Electrospinning is a voltage-driven technique governed by the electrohydrodynamic phenomena where fibers are made from a polymeric solution. The polymer solution is typically pumped through a nozzle at a constant flow rate and a specific voltage is applied to create an electric field between the nozzle and a fiber collector.
Once the surface tension is overcome due to charge accumulation, a solution jet is ejected and due to bending instabilities and whipping motion the solvent evaporates and a solid fiber is formed. Fiber diameter can range between tens of nanometers to a few micrometers according to solution, processing and environmental conditions. Advantages like surface area to volume ratio, ease of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) encapsulation, operation at room temperature, among others, make this technique ideal for multiple applications from R&D to field applications with batch-to-batch consistency.
What is electrospinning used for?
The electrospinning technique also offers the advantage of easy fiber production from a wide range of materials and solvents. Because the process operates at ambient temperature, thermo sentitive materials can easily be encorprated. The popularity of the electrospinning technique has allowed multiple technologies such as tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and encapsulation of bioactive molecules, to emerge and evolve over the past decade. Some recent commerical applications include tssue engineering (NanoAlignedTM, NanoECMTM, NanoCareTM, NanoMeshTM, Absorv®, TegadermTM), drug delivery (Rivelin® Patch), food encapsulation, insulating materials, energy conversion and storage, air (Proveil®) and water filtration, among others.
Why use Electrospinning R&D Services?
Developing new proof-of-concept materials with a new technology takes a great deal of time and investment, the trial-and-error development time runs contrary to the first-to-market goals of executives and corporations. Utilizing Nanoscience Analytical services leverages our extensive experience with electrospun nanofibers. We are able to formulate with a wide variety of materials and solvents; from natural polymers like chitosan and gelatin, synthetic polymers like poly(ε-caprolactone), poly(ethylene terephthalate), polyurethanes and polyacrylonitrile, ceramic materials like hydroxyapatite, metals like platinum, and blends of all these materials. Choosing the right materials and understanding their solubility in the chosen solvents is key to efficient formulation.
With each iteration of formulation, we adjust electrospinning parameters to improve the electospun product until the target properties are met. Instrument parameters can affect fiber alignment, fiber diameter, dryness or solvent content of fibers, and thickness of material. Gas assisted electrospinning can broaden the types of solvents available, which might otherwise clog the emitter. Temperature and humidity are controlled to improve uniformity and reproducibility. Also, during process development we can blend or encapsulate multiple materials and create symmetrical or asymmetrical geometries.
Get Contract Manufacturing Ready
We partner with industry leading electrospinning instrument manufacturer Bioinicia to provide a gateway to full scale-up whether you are looking to bring manufacturing in-house or if you would like to partner with their contract manufacturing services. We remove the hurdles that you would face from formulation transfer from concept to production.
