High-throughput and high-yield fabrication of uniaxially-aligned chitosan-based nanofibers by centrifugal electrospinning

The inability to produce large quantities of nanofibers has been a primary obstacle in advancement and commercialization of electrospinning technologies, especially when aligned nanofibers are desired. Here, we present a high-throughput centrifugal electrospinning (HTP-CES) system capable of producing a large number of highly-aligned nanofiber samples with high-yield and tunable diameters. The versatility of the design was revealed when bead-less nanofibers were produced from copolymer chitosan/polycaprolactone (C-PCL) solutions despite variations in polymer blend composition or spinneret needle gauge. Compared to conventional electrospinning techniques, fibers spun with the HTP-CES not only exhibited superior alignment, but also better diameter uniformity. Nanofiber alignment was quantified using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) analysis. In addition, a concave correlation between the needle diameter and resultant fiber diameter was identified. This system can be easily scaled up for industrial production of highly-aligned nanofibers with tunable diameters that can potentially meet the requirements for various engineering and biomedical applications.