Adhesion force studies of nanofibers and nanoparticles

Surface adhesion between nanofibers and nanoparticles has attracted attention for potential biomedical applications, but the measurement has not been reported. Adhesion forces were measured using a polystyrene (PS) nanoparticle attached to an atomic force microscopy (AFM) tip/probe. Electrospun PS nanofibers of different diameters were tapped with the probe to study the effect of fiber diameters on adhesion force. Both AFM experiments and numerical models suggest that the adhesion force increases with increased fiber diameters. Numerical models further demonstrated that local deformation of the fiber surface, including the flattening of surface asperities and the nanofiber wrapping around the particle during contact, may have a significant impact on the adhesion force. The adhesion forces are in the order of 100 nN, much smaller than the adhesion forces of the gecko foot hair, but much larger than that of the receptor-ligand pair, antibody-antigen pair, and single-stranded DNA from a substrate. Adhesion forces of nanofibers with roughness were predicted by numerical analysis. This study is expected to provide approaches and information useful in the design of nanomedicine and scaffold based on nanofibers for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.