Q150rs

The mice were sacrificed on Gd 14, the fetuses were removed and washed 5–6 times in phosphate buffer (0.1 M); then, the fetuses were immobilized with 2.5% phosphate buffered glutaraldehyde at 4°Cfor 2 days. Immobilized fetuses were placed on polylysine-coated glass coverslips and dehydrated using a graded ethanol series, being immersed for 10 min at each step. The samples were dried by the critical point technique (Quorum K850), attached to specimen holders and coated with gold particles using an ion sputter coater (Quorum Q150RS). The specimens were observed with a scanning electron microscope (ZEISS EVO LS15) operated at 10 KV. All images were obtained using the SmarSEM user interface software.

A scanning electron microscope (SEM, Merlin Gemini II, ZEISS, Germany) was used to analyze nanofiber and film morphology. Prior to imaging, samples were coated with a 10 nm gold layer using a rotary pump sputter coater (Q150RS, Quorum Technologies, UK). The SEM imaging was performed with an accelerating voltage of 2.5 kV and current of 110 pA at a working distance of 7 mm. ImageJ software (version 1.50i, National Institutes of Health, USA) was utilized to determine nanofiber diameters and calculate fiber (F_f) and pore (P_f) fractions from SEM macrographs. The sum of F_f and pore P_f should reach about 100%. The F_f supports the similar information about the meshes as the commonly used shade coefficient in FWC.^{5,13 (link)} The average nanofiber diameter was calculated from 100 measurements presented in histograms prepared using OriginPro (2018b, OriginLab, USA). The fraction of fiber and pore analysis were performed using the particle function in ImageJ based on the images showed in Fig. 1c and d. The pore size was calculated from SEM binary images prepared using the Li thresholding method in ImageJ.^{45,46 (link)} The threshold was set to 0–90 for P_f and pore size calculation. The F_f was calculated from inverted binary 2D images.

The microscopy of the manufactured yarns and the corresponding fabrics was done using a scanning electron microscope (Jeol JSM-6610, Japan) to understand the differences in their surface morphology and physical structure. All samples were sputter-coated with an approximately 30 nm gold layer by using a sputter coater (Q150RS, Quorum Technologies). The damaged ends of FFs collected on the glass filters from the pre-wash and the fifth wash of ring, airjet and rotor samples were characterized using the same scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to elucidate the mechanism of fiber damage. Twenty fiber ends were randomly imaged from each sample after the pre-wash and fifth wash to estimate the details of the broken fiber end morphologies. In addition, SEM was also used to evaluate the surface of the textile samples before washing and after the fifth wash in order to identify the fiber surface damage/wear.

Samples were coated with approximately 5 nm Au layer using rotary-pumped sputter coating (Q150RS, Quorum Technologies, Lewes, UK). SEM (Merlin Gemini II, Zeiss, Munich, Germany) was used for imaging, applying a current of 20 pA and voltage of 3 kV. Fiber diameters (Figure 1) and sample thickness (see Figure S1 in the Supplementary Materials) were measured from SEM images using Fiji (Life-Line Version 2.0, Bethesda, MD, USA).
The mechanical properties of PCL fiber mats were measured using a tensile module with 1 N load cell (Kammrath Weiss GmbH, Dortmund, Germany). The tensile module is shown in Figure S2 in the Supplementary Material. The fiber mats were placed within the frames of a 2 mm × 1.7 mm area with cut sides. Mechanical tests were performed uniaxially with an extension speed of 50 μm·s⁻¹. Maximum stress and strain were calculated from stress-strain curves using Origin Integrate Function.

Before the test and after 5 Mc, the surface morphology of the femoral heads and acetabular cups were observed by SEM. After drying under an infrared lamp, the filter membrane was mounted on a metal microscope stub and sputter-coated with gold at a thickness of 3 nm to 5 nm (Quorum, Q150RS). Then, the particles on the filter membrane were observed by SEM at different magnifications and SEM images of the particles were recorded. In this study, the magnification was: 500×, 1000× and 10 000× and at an accelerating voltage of no greater than 10 keV. Those parameters were adjusted according to the particle size. Semi-quantitative elementary analyses were also performed, using an Energy Dispersed Spectrometer (EDS) to determine the elements of particles. Particle morphology might be used as an additional basis for identifying UHMWPE particles by reference to published images of UHMWPE particles.³¹

Zeiss-EVO MA10 microscopy (Carl Zeiss, Oberkochen, Germany) was used to capture SEM pictures of the membranes. In order to observe the cross sectional morphology, membranes were firstly freeze fractured in liquid nitrogen. and then covered, as the membrane surface, with a thin conductive gold layer (Quorum Q150 RS).