Dynamic Stabilization of Electro-Spinning Process for Production of Inflatable Drug-Delivery Stents

静电纺丝最早发现于20世纪30年代末，是一种从直径从几纳米到几微米的聚合物溶液中制造超细纤维的通用方法。目前，静电纺丝是制备纳米级连续纤维的唯一方法。电纺的主要应用领域之一是组织工程，其中电纺纳米纤维用于生产组织和器官模板。尽管有能力生产非常精细的纤维，但作为一种制造技术，静电纺丝过程的控制很差。负责拉伸纤维的力也在产生不希望的不稳定性方面起作用，导致纤维的随机分布和对所产生的纤维的位置的不良控制。该奖项支持基础研究，以提供开发受控纳米纤维沉积工艺所需的知识。该项目的动态稳定方法将使编织聚合物支架的制造能够用于组织工程和生产新的可生物降解的药物输送支架。因此，这项研究的结果将有利于美国经济，并将导致先进治疗设备的开发。这项研究包含一个推广计划，采用类似的方法，旨在激励来自弱势社区和代表性不足的少数族裔的儿童追求STEM职业生涯。更具体地说，这项研究将探索动态稳定和静电聚焦作为控制电纺纤维沉积的新手段。它将首次研究将带电细丝聚焦在保罗型线性离子陷阱内的可行性。尽管线性离子陷阱在质谱学中被广泛使用，但从未被用于捕获宏观离子，如电纺聚合物纤维。利用弗洛奎分析，这项研究将从理论上检验捕获带电光纤的可行性，并建立所需的捕获参数。提出了基于动态稳定的电纺过程闭环控制方案。

Electrospinning, first discovered in the late 1930s, is a versatile method to create ultra-fine fibers from polymer solutions with diameters ranging from a few nanometers to several micrometers. Currently, electrospinning is the only method for the fabrication of continuous fibers at the nanometer scale. One of the main application areas of electrospinning is tissue engineering, where electro-spun nano-fibers are used to produce tissue and organ templates. Despite its ability to produce very fine fibers, the electrospinning process as a manufacturing technique is poorly controlled. The very same forces responsible for drawing the fibers are also at play in generating an undesirable instability, leading to random fiber distribution and poor control over the location of the produced fibers. This award supports fundamental research to provide knowledge required for the development of a controlled nano-fiber deposition process. This project's dynamic stabilization approach will enable the manufacturing of woven polymeric stents that can be used in tissue engineering and in the production of new biodegradable drug-delivery stents. Therefore, results from this research will benefit the U.S. economy, and will lead to the development of advanced therapeutic devices. This research contains an outreach program using an analog of the approach aimed at motivating children from disadvantaged communities and underrepresented minorities to pursue STEM careers.More specifically, this research will explore dynamic stabilization and electrostatic focusing as a new means to control the deposition of electrospun fibers. For the first time, it will examine the feasibility of focusing charged filaments inside a Paul-type linear ionic trap. Despite their widespread use in mass spectroscopy, linear ionic traps have never been used to trap macroscopic ions such as electrospun polymeric fibers. Using Floquet analysis, the research will examine theoretically the feasibility of trapping charged fibers and will establish the required trapping parameters. A closed-loop control of the electrospinning process based on the dynamic stabilization is also planned.