• Air conditioning of the electrospinning machine chamber
  • hajar moghadas,1,*
    1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Yasouj University, 75918-74831, Iran


  • Introduction: Electrospinning is one of the most common technique that used in the tissue engineering [1]. In the electrospinning method, membranes consisting of micro and nanofiber are produced by evaporating the solvent from polymer solutions [2]. Indeed, the most commonly used solvents in that technique are anesthetic (e.g. chloroform) and toxic (e.g. dimethylformamide) [3]. Although the electrospinning of harmful solvents is carried out in a chamber with closed doors, it may endanger the health of the operators. Therefore, it is necessary to continuously ventilate the air inside the chamber. Since the electrospun fibers are very thin and delicate, the air flow inside the chamber may damage the fibers or interfere with the fiber formation. In this work, several configurations of the chamber with a fan are designed, and evaluated by simulation the flow field of the air inside the chamber. The fan is installed on the top of the chamber to suck the air containing the evaporated solvent, and in the other wall of the chamber, a mesh plate is considered to allow fresh air to enter the chamber. The simulation is carried out to investigate the effect of the airflow on the air condition and fiber formation. Several fans with different suction power are studied for air conditioning in a commercial electrospun chamber.
  • Methods: A commercial electrospun chamber with a dimension of 100×80×60 cm3 is selected for the simulation. The geometry of the camber is designed by Gambit software, and is shown in Figure 1. As shown in Figure 1, a fan is embedded on the top of the chamber which is simulated by a circular surface in the computational domain with small and concentrated grids. A rectangular strip is considered as the air inlet on the lower surface of the chamber is demonstrated by the pink color. The airflow field inside the chamber is simulated using Fluent software. Fans with low power are chosen to avoid damage the fibers. Therefore, the airflow is laminar, and the governing equations of the airflow are as below: where is the velocity vector, P is the pressure, is density, is the kinematic viscosity and ∇ is the gradient operator. For boundary conditions, a no-slip condition is set on the walls of the chamber. Different flow rates of 500-1800 𝑚3/ℎ (correspond to various commercial fans) are set on the fan location. Initial zero velocity is set on the inlet surface when the fan is off. The physical properties of the air are considered at room temperature.
  • Results: The simulation result of the air flow field inside the chamber is shown in Figure 2 for a flow rate of 1800 𝑚3/ℎ. Figure 2-A illustrates the velocity vectors of the flow colored by the velocity magnitude (m/s). The highest velocity occurs at the fan location, which is 2.64 m/s and is shown in red color. The direction of the velocity vector at the fan plane is upward that confirm air exhaust. The magnitude of the velocity inside the chamber is lower than 1 m/s. Experimental test shows that it is small enough to ensure fibers do not damage. Two different directions are examined for the air inlet surface which are demonstrated in Figures 2-B and 2-C. In both cases, the path lines of the air are smooth and follow the wall of the chamber. There is no flow disturbance in the middle and center of the chamber where the electrospinning set is located.
  • Conclusion: Simulating the air flow field caused by the fan inside the electrospinning chamber gives valuable data about the magnitude and path line distribution. The obtained data are examined in an actual chamber. When the fan is on, the smell of solvent is not detected. That proves that the fan is working well. Moreover, no disturbance in the electrospinning process is observed despite the designed fan attached to the chamber.
  • Keywords: Air conditioning, Electrospinning, Toxic solvent, Simulation