A comparison of automated and manual techniques for measurement of electrospun fibre diameter

Electrospinning is a fibre manufacturing process, and fibre diameter is a fundamental property. We compare diameter measurements made by human operators against two automated algorithms (FibreQuant™ and SEMAnalyser™). The effects of scanning electron microscopy preparation by iridium, gold and carbon coating on fibre diameter are also examined.A human takes 2.2 h to make 150 measurements. Automated analysis produces 9000 measurements less than 5 minutes. The automated method produces results without researcher bias and with greater consistency, but will occasionally include incorrect measurements because of the simple heuristics used. The manual method used by human operators shows larger variation in reported averages and is labour intensive.Before obtaining scanning electron microscopy images, the fibre samples require a conductive coating to prevent charging and burning of the fibres; the effects of SEM preparation methods such as iridium, gold and carbon coating showed that iridium coating had the least impact on fibre diameter.