Aligned electrospun nanofibers for ultra-thin layer chromatography

The fabrication and implementation of aligned electrospun polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibers as a stationary phase for ultra-thin layer chromatography (UTLC) is described. The aligned electrospun UTLC plates (AE-UTLC) were characterized to give an optimized electrospun mat consisting of high nanofiber alignment and a mat thickness of ∼25 μm. The AE-UTLC devices were used to separate a mixture of β-blockers and steroidal compounds to illustrate the properties of AE-UTLC. The AE-UTLC plates provided shorter analysis time (∼2–2.5 times faster) with improved reproducibility (as high as 2 times) as well as an improvement in efficiency (up to100 times greater) relative to non-aligned electrospun-UTLC (E-UTLC) devices.

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► Aligned electrospun nanofibers are applied as a stationary phase in UTLC (AE-UTLC).
► AE-UTLC phases showed 2 times greater reproducibility than non-aligned phases.
► Aligning the nanofibers increased efficiency up to 100 times.
► AE-UTLC showed 2–2.5 times faster time of analysis relative to non-aligned E-UTLC.