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This work focuses on the development of electrically conducting porous nanocomposite structures by the incorporation of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNT) into electrospun poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) nanofibers. Electron microscopy confirmed the presence of individual aligned MWNT encapsulated within the fibers and showed fiber morphologies with diameters of 100-200 nm. Electrical conductance measurements of the random nanofiber mats showed that by increasing the concentration of MWNT we were able to produce porous nanocomposite structures with dramatically improved electrical conductivity. Above a percolation threshold of 0.365 ( 0.09 MWNT weight percent (wt %) in PEO the conductance increased by a factor of 10 12 and then became approximately constant as the concentration of MWNT was further increased. Because of this percolation threshold, for a 1 wt % loading of MWNT, the conductivity is essentially maximized. Mechanical testing confirmed that the tensile strength did not change, and there was a 3-fold increase in the Young's modulus when comparing a 1 wt % MWNT loading to the pure electrospun PEO. Thus, the optimal MWNT concentration for PEO nanofiber mats with enhanced mechanical and electrical properties is ∼1 wt %.

A novel, simple geometry for high throughput electrospinning from a bowl edge is presented that utilizes a vessel filled with a polymer solution and a concentric cylindrical collector. Successful fiber formation is presented for two different polymer systems with differing solution viscosity and solvent volatility. The process of jet initiation, resultant fiber morphology and fiber production rate are discussed for this unconfined feed approach. Under high voltage initiation, the jets spontaneously form directly on the fluid surface and rearrange along the circumference of the bowl to provide approximately equal spacing between spinning sites. Nanofibers currently produced from bowl electrospinning are identical in quality to those fabricated by traditional needle electrospinning (TNE) with a demonstrated ∼ 40 times increase in the production rate for a single batch of solution due primarily to the presence of many simultaneous jets. In the bowl electrospinning geometry, the electric field pattern and subsequent effective feed rate are very similar to those parameters found under optimized TNE experiments. Consequently, the electrospinning process per jet is directly analogous to that in TNE and thereby results in the same quality of nanofibers.

Electric stimulation is known to initiate signaling pathways and provides a technique to enhance osteogenic differentiation of stem and/or progenitor cells. There are a variety of in vitro stimulation devices to apply electric fields to such cells. Herein, we describe and highlight the use of interdigitated electrodes to characterize signaling pathways and the effect of electric fields on the proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of human adipose-derived stem cells (hASCs). The advantage of the interdigitated electrode configuration is that cells can be easily imaged during short-term (acute) stimulation, and this identical configuration can be utilized for longterm (chronic) studies. Acute exposure of hASCs to alternating current (AC) sinusoidal electric fields of 1 Hz induced a dose-dependent increase in cytoplasmic calcium in response to electric field magnitude, as observed by fluorescence microscopy. hASCs that were chronically exposed to AC electric field treatment of 1 V/cm (4 h/ day for 14 days, cultured in the osteogenic differentiation medium containing dexamethasone, ascorbic acid, and b-glycerol phosphate) displayed a significant increase in mineral deposition relative to unstimulated controls. This is the first study to evaluate the effects of sinusoidal AC electric fields on hASCs and to demonstrate that acute and chronic electric field exposure can significantly increase intracellular calcium signaling and the deposition of accreted calcium under osteogenic stimulation, respectively.

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In this paper, we characterize the rotational dynamics and observe rotor-rotor interactions within a crystalline, three-dimensional array of dipolar molecular rotors. The rotating portion of each rotor molecule consists of a dipolar fluorine-substituted phenyl group. The phenyl rotors are connected by acetylene linkages to bulky triphenyl methyl groups which are held rigid in the crystal lattice. These custom synthesized rotor molecules allow control over the molecular spacing in the lattice, the dipole strength, and the rotational hindrance, thus permitting formation of systems with rapid thermal rotation and strong dipole-dipole interactions, which is of interest for studying new phases and collective phenomena. Dielectric and 2 H NMR spectroscopy measurements are used to map the rotational potential, and to explore the influence of rotor-rotor interactions. Interactions due to dipole-dipole effects are studied using a Monte Carlo simulation, while contributions from steric interactions between rotors are investigated using molecular mechanics methods. Both contributions are needed explain the dielectric spectroscopy results.

The photothermal effect of metal nanoparticles embedded in polymeric materials can be used to effi ciently generate local heat for in situ thermally processing within an existing material. Fluorescent probes are employed as thermal sensors to allow dynamical measurement of the amplitude and rate of temperature change within the polymer matrix. The effi cacy of this technique is demonstrated in polymer nanocomposite samples with different morphological characteristics, namely nanofi brous mats and thin fi lm samples. For similarly thick materials and both types of sample morphology, average temperature increases on the order of ≈ 100s ° C are readily obtained with dilute nanoparticle concentrations under relatively low irradiation intensity. Thus, the in situ photothermal heating approach has great potential for controllably driving a multitude of thermal processes, such as triggering phase transitions, generating site-specifi c cross-linking, or initiating chemical reactions from within a material.