Thermal diffusivity measurements of polycaprolactone membranes by means of photoacoustic techniques

A self-normalized photoacoustic technique was used to measure the thermal properties of polymeric polycaprolactone membranes obtained by the electrospinning technique. Using this photoacoustic technique, which is a photothermal method that uses modulated radiation to produce heat in the material, the thermal diffusivity of polycaprolactone membranes with different average fiber diameters was determined. Scanning electron microscopy was used to obtain images of the membranes. The objective of this study was to establish a potential correlation between the thermal diffusivity of the membranes and the average diameter of the fibers. This is important because thermal properties can be a crucial parameter for characterizing these materials, which have found applications in biomedical fields such as tissue engineering and drug delivery support in topical applications.