Development of laboratory-scale high-speed rotary devices for a potential pharmaceutical microfibre drug delivery platform

Abstract

The production of polymer microfibres and nanofibres using rotary jet spinning as platforms for drug delivery and tissue engineering applications has been explored. The aligned orientation of fibres and consequent improvement in the mechanical properties of the scaffold are essential in several pharmaceutical and biomedical applications, where elastic materials with high tensile resistance are required. This study aimed to develop high-speed rotary jet devices to fabricate polyvinylpyrrolidone-based homopolymer and copolymer rotary-spun fibres and establish a correlation between the operational parameters of the devices and the morphology and microstructure of the fabricated fibres. Preconstruction modelling was carried out using computer-aided design through parametric 3D body modelling of the rotary device components by assigning appropriate dimensions and tolerances, as well as material parameters. Finite-element modelling was used to analyse the mechanical stress of the designed spinnerets. The obtained fibre mats were subjected to a detailed morphological analysis using optical and scanning electron microscopy, while the microstructural changes in the fibre samples, based on the free volume changes, were analysed by positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy. The results indicate that the compact design and the controllability of the operational parameters enabled the formation of continuous aligned-oriented homogeneous fibres of variable diameters depending on the type of forming fibre polymer for further processing to formulate pharmaceutical drug delivery systems.

Keywords: Finite-element modelling of the mechanical load; High-speed rotary spinning; Microfibres; Morphological analysis; Platform technology; Positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS).