Predicting the Size of Electrospun Elastomer Fibers from Multi-component Solutions

摘要

Due to their excellent biocompatibility, isobutylene-based thermoplastic elastomers started to gain space in medical applications. The purpose of the research it to discover the potential which lies in electrospun fiber mats made from the recently discovered thermoplastic elastomer, poly(alloocimene-b-isobutylene-b-alloocimene) block copolymer and to establish a set of correlations through which the outcomes of the production process could be accurately approximated. It starts with the production of the polymer, then characterization and finally electrospinning it into fibers. Analyzing the morphology of the fibers will give the data from which the predictive model can be built in order to accurately simulate different setups of the process, which have not been tried out yet but could lead to favorable results. One of the possible applications is studying drug release from fibers with different morphology.