Tailoring Fibre Structure Enabled by X-ray Analytics for Targeted Biomedical Applications
Jean Schoeller,
Jonathan T. Avaro,
Anjani K. Maurya,
René M. Rossi,
Antonia Neels
Affiliations
Jean Schoeller
Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Laboratory for Biomimetic Membranes and Textiles, 9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland. ; 2 ETH Zürich, Department of Health Science and Technology, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland
Jonathan T. Avaro
Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Center for X-ray Analytics, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland;
Anjani K. Maurya
Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Center for X-ray Analytics, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland; Current address: Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA, 94025 USA.
René M. Rossi
1 Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Laboratory for Biomimetic Membranes and Textiles, 9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland; 2 ETH Zürich, Department of Health Science and Technology, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland;
Antonia Neels
3 Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Center for X-ray Analytics, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland; 4 University of Fribourg, Department of Chemistry, Chemin du Musée 9, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland, Switzerland
The rising interest in designing fibres via spinning techniques combining the properties of various polymeric materials into advanced functionalised materials is directed towards targeted biomedical applications such as drug delivery, wearable sensors or tissue engineering. Understanding how these functional polymers exhibit multiscale structures ranging from the molecular level to nano-, micro-and millimetre scale is a key prerequisite for their challenging applications that can be addressed by a non-destructive X-ray based analytical approach. X-ray multimodalities combining X-ray imaging, scattering and diffraction allow the study of morphology, molecular structure, and the analysis of nano-domain size and shape, crystallinity and preferential orientation in 3D arrangements. The incorporation of X-ray analytics in the design process of polymeric fibers via their nanostructure under non-ambient conditions (i.e. temperature, mechanical load, humidity…) allows for efficient optimization of the fabrication process as well as quality control along the product lifetime under operating environmental conditions. Here, we demonstrate the successful collaboration between the laboratory of Biomimetic Textiles and Membranes and the Center of X-ray Analytics at Empa for the design, characterisation and optimisation of advanced functionalised polymeric fibrous material systems.
