Types of Collectors for different morphology

The collectors are conductive electrodes. The flying fibers, once stiff, settle on their surface. Fibers are gradually deposited as layers on the collectors to create nanofiber material.

The collector structure has a significant impact on the properties of the resulting material (product), the collector design is always adapted to the product requirements in terms of the size and internal morphology of the nanomaterial. Other major influences on the material properties (fiber diameter, mechanical properties, sample size, etc.) have the distance between the two electrodes, i.e. the emitter and the collector, the high voltage used, climatic conditions, etc.

Nanofiber Alignment

If material of a larger surface size needs to be created, the static plate collector C1 or slowly rotating drum C3 (which provides the largest surface area of product) can be used. The internal random structure of nanofiber materials is a limiting factor of the electrospinning method, and for fundamental reasons it is impossible to achieve a regular material structure in a conventional arrangement, in that the fibers are randomly deposited as a result of a chaotic area (a "whipping zone") located in the path of the fiber before it makes contact with the collector. Aligning the very complicated and chaotic trajectory into a single direction in a controlled manner is a technological challenge. Nevertheless, it can be managed by means of statically partitioned C2 and rotating collectors C4. A Collecting sliding tool can be used with patterned collectors to create 3D-like structures.