Boosting Nanofiber Production

Nanofibers - strands of material only a couple hundred nanometers in diameter - have a huge range of possible applications, but the expense of producing them has consigned them to a few high-end, niche applications. A team of MIT researchers has developed a new way to generate nanofibers, using manufacturing techniques common in the microchip industry. They built a one-square-centimeter array of conical tips, which they immersed in a fluid containing a dissolved plastic. They then applied a voltage to the array, producing an electrostatic field that is strongest at the tips of the cones. In a technique known as electrospinning, the cones eject the dissolved plastic as a stream that solidifies into a fiber only 220 nanometers across.

Transcript

00:00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING] Electro spinning is the process of using high electric fields to draw very fine fibers from a liquid. Electro spun fibers, only a couple nanometers in diameter, have a wide range of possible uses, but the cost of producing them has limited them to very few high-end applications. A team of MIT researchers has developed a new way

00:00:27 to generate nanofibers using hardware built through standard chip manufacturing processes. In their prototype, the researchers crammed 25 emitters into a square centimeter, boosting nano fiber production rates, while reducing power consumption. Chip manufacturing techniques make it possible to carefully engineer the texture of the emitters so that they suck up and expel the liquid in a steady stream,

00:00:50 combining textures that inhibit and promote the spread of liquid yields a chip that will quickly disperse a single drop of fluid deposited at its center. Control over the amount of liquid and the speed and shape of its dispersal is crucial to the efficient production of nanofibers.