Papers by Keyword: Hybrid Technique

Abstract: Electrospinning is a versatile and efficient technique for fabricating nanofibrous tissue engineering scaffolds. However, problems such as small pore size of electrospun scaffolds have limited their applications for tissue regeneration. It is important to modify/improve existing electrospinning techniques for fully realizing the potential of both the electrospinning technology and electrospun nanofibrous scaffolds. To increase the pore size of scaffolds prepared by conventional electrospinning technology, in the present study, a hybrid fabrication technique by combining electrospinning with phase separation is utilized. Polymer solutions were made using mixed solvent of (a) DCM and DMF or (b) chloroform and DMF and electrospun fibers were deposited in ice water, ice methanol or liquid nitrogen. It was shown that for poly (ε-caprolactone) (PCL) scaffolds, the hybrid technique could maintain the nanofibrous structure for scaffolds and control the pore size in scaffolds. As compared with pore sizes in PCL scaffolds made by conventional electrospinning, pores were larger in PCL scaffolds produced by the hybrid technique.

Abstract: A method for mercury high throughput rapid speciation analysis was built by short column capillary electrophoresis (SC-CE) coupled with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). A micromist nebulizer was employed to increase the nebulization efficiency and a laboratory-made removable SC-CE-ICP-MS interface on the basis of cross design was applied to alleviate buffer contamination of ICP-MS. In less than 60 s methylmercury (MeHg(I)) and inorganic mercury (Hg(II)) were separated in a 16 × 75 μm i.d. short column fused-silica capillary at 21 kV, while a mixture of 30 mmol/L boric aicd + 5% (v/v) CH3OH (pH=8.60) acted as running electrolyte. The precisions (RSD, n=5) of migration time and peak area for MeHg(I) and Hg(II) were in the range of 1.4-2.6% and 3.3-3.4%, respectively. The limits of detection (3σ) mercury species were 9.7 and 12.0 μg/L, respectively. The recoveries for Hg(II) MeHg(I) were in the range of 96-107% and 99-105%.