Orienting Collagen Nanofibers

A Study of the Formation of Collagen Nanofibers using Electrospinning", at the School of Industrial and Aeronautic Engineering of Terrassa, reports on the manufacturing of synthetic cartilage similar to human cartilage, for medical use. Protection of the knee for disabled people with prostheses may be one of the first applications. controlling nanofibers means arraying them in a particular configuration: in parallel, in a circle, or crossed. The fibers that form the cartilage that protects the knee are aligned in parallel. Orienting collagen nanofibers is an extremely complex task because collagen is a natural polymer that is very difficult to control. This task was achieved by using the electrospinning method.

The results of this work are innovative. The collagen nanofibers are obtained by exposing the collagen to electrical discharges. The collagen is extruded, in the form of a nanofiber thread, through a fine needle and is deposited on an electric collector consisting of two grounded plates. The student placed a nonconductive material between the two conducting plates. The nanofibers aligned on top of each other perfectly in parallel lines between the two conducting plates.

The student was very cautious when explaining why the nanofibers had behaved in this manner. One hypothesis that was explained the phe-nomenon has to do with the ratio of the diameter of the nanofibers to the distance between the two collecting plates on which they are deposited. she believes that the smaller the diameter of the nanofibers, the better the results will be, but she insists that this is a working hypothesis that needs to be thoroughly tested.

How to manufacture synthetic cartilage
Until now, creating synthetic cartilage was complex but not impossible. The prob-lem was that it was impossible to imitate the perfection of human cartilage due to the difficulty in orienting the collagen nanofibers; synthetic cartilage was there-fore manufactured using gelatinous substances derived from collagen.

The process for creating synthetic cartilage began with processing stem cells. These cells, if processed in the right way, reproduce and transform into any type of cell required by the scientist manipulating them. For this to be possible, the cells must be in an ideal environment. This work means that the collagen fibers adapt to the configuration of the chondrocytes (cartilage cells) and are made in the ideal environment, in which these chondrocytes grow until they form the desired cartilage.

http://www.azonano.com/news.asp?newsID=8656

Electro spinning of Nano fibre

Simple core nano fibres synthesis process is established. (Single nozzle systems)

Core-Multi-shell Nanofibres will lead to:

Biosensors
In-vivo CMOS implants
Drug delivery
Gas Sensors
Tissue Engineering
High strength materials
Hydrogen Storage

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