Thickness measurement for Electrospun membrane

Cross-section of Ny/GO fibre film after three hours of electrospinning. [Menchaca-Campos et al. International Journal of Polymer Science, vol. 2013, Article ID 621618, 9 pages, 2013. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.]

In materials characterization and performance measurement, it is sometimes necessary to determine the thickness of the nanofiber membrane. However, high porosity of electrospun membrane made it partially compressible when it experiences a load. Thus, it is important to note that conventional thickness measurement equipment such as micrometer screw gauge may introduce a systematic error in the readings. Affandi et al (2010) measured the thickness of electrospun nanofibrous membrane (Polyacrylonitrile and Nylon) using a white light profilometer and a micrometer and compared the difference. As expected, the thickness measured using the white light profilometer is significantly larger than that measured from the micrometer. In some cases, the thickness measured by the micrometer is less than half that obtained from the profilometer with a difference of more than 10 µm. Further, the profilometer was able to measure the height compression due to the micrometer. Thus, where accuracy in thickness is essential, a contactless thickness measurement technique is preferred. Given the demand for determining the thickness of electrospun membrane, IME Technologies have developed a contactless thickness measuring module for measuring fiber membrane thickness during electrospinning. This device uses laser to accurately measure the thickness of the membrane as it builds up. See EM-TMM

Below is a list of some devices and methods that may be used to determine the membrane thickness of electrospun samples.