Fibers loaded with either particles or cells are widely
employed
across a variety of fields, including material science, tissue engineering,
and pharmaceutical research. However, the concentration of such objects
along the fiber length remains stochastic, thus resulting in fibers
having heterogeneous properties along their length. We here introduce
a new class of material featuring fibers loaded with “equally
spaced” microparticles. The fibers were obtained thanks to
the combination between the recently discovered viscoelastic particle
ordering phenomenon and the well-established process of fiber synthesis
via ex situ ionic gelation. We employed a simple experimental apparatus
made of a syringe pump connected to a 100 μm tube ending in
a calcium chloride bath. The liquid forming the fiber was an aqueous
solution of hyaluronic acid and sodium alginate. We studied the effect
of volumetric flow rate, sodium alginate concentration, and spinning
speed on the fiber diameter and the particle-spacing in the fiber.
We also discussed the advantages of this type of fiber over the existing
ones and suggested potential applications across several fields.
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