Foldscope application in quality control of electrospun fibers by observing beads formation

Dec 10, 2018 • 7:21 AM UTC

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Jitendra Satija

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The solution of poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) of varying concentrations were prepared and used to fabricate nano- and micro-spun fibers for biomaterial applications. If any beads are present in these electrospun fibers (which is an indication of poor quality fibers), it suggests the need to optimize the parameters (such as temperature, humidity, concentration, speed, etc.). Here, the foldscope could be used to observe the presence of the beads in the electrospun fibers as encircled red in the image no.1. Further, the parameters were optimized accordingly which resulted in fibers without beads as shown in the image no. 2. In addition, foldscope could be used to determine the size of the electrospun fibers using a 200 µm core optical fiber as a reference tool to measure the dimension. The average diameter of the electrospun fibers was found to be 8.60±0.21 µm.