Novel Technique for Polymeric Nanofibers Preparation: Air Jet Spinning

Although electrospinning is the most widely used nanofibers making technique due to its simplicity, low production rate and dependence on high voltage power supply are the main dilemmas. Moreover, completely non conductive polymers solutions cannot be electrospun which adds further constrain. In this study, we introduce a novel, safe and low cost technique to produce the polymeric nanofibers in ultrafast production rate. The proposed technique is based on exploiting the high speed air jets in stretching the polymer solution into ultrathin fibers. The average production rate of the proposed technique is around 15 mL/min. The diameter of the obtained nanofibers can be controlled easily by adjusting the polymer concentration and the distance between the nozzle and the collector. Interestingly, the nanofibers can be collected on solid and liquid collectors. Three polymers were examined in the introduced technique namely poly(lactic acid), poly(vinyl acetate) and polycaprolactone. The bioactivity of the Mg was strongly enhanced by utilizing the proposed technique to coat an Mg substrate by poly(lactic acid) nanofibers as a plenty of the bone-like precipitates was observed upon soaking of the coated samples for only one day in a simulated body fluid. Moreover, the corrosion resistance of the Mg substrate was highly improved after coating by using the introduced strategy. MC3T3 cells attachment and ingrowth were studied for the naked and coated Mg disk; the results were very satisfactory which further supports invoking the introduced strategy to coat the Mg-based hard tissues.