Electrospinning is a simple method for producing ultrafine fibers, and has attracted much recent interest. The classical approach was either polymer solutions or polymer melts. Bubbfil spinning (e.g. bubble-electrospinning) is a facile method to fabricate nanofibers with high surface area to volume ratio and high porosity. Polyether sulfone (PES) dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAC) was us...

This paper describes an atomic force microscope (AFM) based voltage-assisted electrospinning technique. Single nanofibers on substrates are prepared via simultaneous preparation and deposition. In this work, an AFM-based electrospinning process is developed to generate polyethylene oxide (PEO) polymeric single fibers with nanometer scale diameters. The results demonstrate the feasibility of thi...

Electrospinning is a simple and versatile encapsulation technology. Since electrospinning does not involve severe conditions of temperature or pressure or the use of harsh chemicals, it has great potential for effectively entrapping and delivering bioactive compounds. Recently, electrospinning has been used in the food industry to encapsulate bioactive compounds into different biopolymers (carb...

In this study, mixed suspensions of large hard polystyrene microspheres and small soft poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) microgels are used as model systems to investigate the static and viscoelastic properties of suspensions which go through liquid to gel transitions. The microgels cause short-range attraction between microspheres through the bridging and depletion mechanism whose strength can be tu...

Bottom-up approach is a potentially useful tool for hydrogel assembly of cell-laden individual building blocks. In this article, we assembled individual building blocks of photocrosslinkable microgels in a rapid and controlled manner. Individual building blocks of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) microgels with square and hexagonal shapes were fabricated by using a photolithography technique. Indivi...

Surfactant-free, radical precipitation co-polymerization of N-isopropylmethacrylamide (NIPMAm) and the cationic co-monomer N-(3-aminopropyl) methacrylamide hydrochloride (APMH) was carried out to prepare microgels functionalized with primary amines. The morphology and hydrodynamic diameter of the microgels were characterized by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and photon correlation spectroscopy (...

Lan XU *, Jiang-Hui ZHAO , and Hua LIU c,d a Nantong Textile Institute, Soochow University, Nantong, China b National Engineering Laboratory for Modern Silk, College of Textile and Clothing Engineering, Soochow University, Suzhou, China c College of Textile and Costume, Yancheng Institute of Industry Technology, Yancheng, China d Jiangsu R&D Center of the Ecological Textile Engineering and Tech...

Back Cover: Article 2200864 by Esther Amstad and co-worker demonstrates that the stiffness of swollen microgel-reinforced hydrogels (MRHs) depends on connectivity between fragmented microgels, which is closely related to their initial volume fraction. By contrast, fracture toughness linearly scales with effective fraction microgels in MRHs regardless connectivity. These insights provide univers...

Despite many of the studies being conducted, the electrospinning of poly (lactic acid) (PLA), dissolved in its common solvents, is difficult to be continuously processed for mass production. This is due to the polymer solution droplet drying. Besides, the poor stretching capability of the polymer solution limits the production of small diameter fibers. To address these issues, we have examined ...

To improve the performance of mass sensitive biosensors, the surface of a piezoelectric quartz crystal transducer, is expanded by employing electrospun nanofibers to its surface. This work describes the effect of vertical horizontal electrospinning setups and electrospinning parameters on fiber morphology. The research objective was to obtain finer and non-beaded fiber morphologies, via control...