Development of millifluidic device and electronic extrusion system for fabrication of sodium alginate/carbon nanotube microfibers

The article presents a milli-fluidic device and electronic extrusion system for fabricating alginate/carbon nanotube microfibers using calcium chloride as a crosslink agent. The device was designed, simulated, and prototyped, and successfully applied the mixture of alginate and carbon nanotube to generate microfibers in different concentrations and stepper motor speeds. The flow extrusion pump was used to pump fluid flow to the milli-fluidic device and crosslink calcium chloride to form sodium alginate-CNT microfibers. The microfibers were fabricated and characterized using techniques like FE-SEM, FTIR, Raman Spectroscopy, and XRD. The results showed the material’s amorphous crystallinity and the composite nature of the fibbers, consisting of alginate as the matrix and CNTs as the reinforcing, conductive filler. The invented technology successfully generated microfibers with sizes ranging from 60 to 100 μm and I-V measurements were tested. The study demonstrates the potential of the developed system for fabricating conductive microfibers with properties relevant to nerve tissue engineering. However, further biological validation is required to confirm their suitability for nerve repair applications. The findings have significant implications for the design of scaffolds in regenerative nerve therapies. These findings support the potential of the fabricated microfibers as conductive scaffolds for nerve tissue engineering, although further biological validation is required.