Conference Speakers

Mohamad Keblawi

Doctoral Research Assistant, Rowan University

Scalable Manufacturing of Nanoyarns

Polymer nanofiber yarns fabricated from biocompatible and biodegradable polymers can be employed in biomedical applications such as tissue engineering, biosensors, implants, sutures and many more. Nanofibers have a high surface area to volume ratio which results in excellent mechanics and great intractability in biological media. A new nanoyarn manufacturing platform was developed in our lab facilitates great control over manufacturing parameters and lead to improvements in mechanical tenacity compared to nanoyarns fabricated via self-assembly electrospinning and cone electrospinning. Nanoyarns made using the described method can be fabricated from any electrospunable polymer. This also means that nanoyarn production rate is directly tied to the production rate of electrospun nanofibers. One of the main obstacles in scaling up the production of electrospun nanofibers is the relatively low yields. Thus, scaling up nanoyarn production requires improving electrospinning efficiency. Electrospinning efficiency depends on many factors including pump rate, collector material, needle height, track material. We hypothesize that said parameters affect the electric field of spinning system, thus indirectly tying the electric field system efficiency. Finding optimal values for electrospinning parameters is paramount in maximizing electrospinning efficiency. This will be done using a machine learning approach. Efficiency is measured at various spinning parameters. Said efficiencies along its corresponding parameters are used to generate a training set for a machine learning model. Said model is then used to predict optimal spinning parameters for maximizing efficiency.