ICAR-Central Institute for Research on cotton Technology, Mumbai, India.
Department of Fashion Technology, Kumaraguru College of Technology, Coimbatore, India.
Sci Rep. 2020 Mar 9;10(1):4302. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-60752-6.
Electrospinning with various machine configurations is being used to produce polymer nanofibers with different rates of output. The use of polymers with high viscosity and the encapsulation of nanoparticles for achieving functionalities are some of the limitations of the existing methods. A profiled multi-pin electrospinning (PMES) setup is demonstrated in this work that overcomes the limitations in the needle and needleless electrospinning like needle clogging, particle settling, and uncontrolled/uneven Taylor cone formation, the requirement of very high voltage and uncontrolled distribution of nanoparticles in nanofibers. The key feature of the current setup is the use of profiled pin arrangement that aids in the formation of spherical shape polymer droplet and hence ensures uniform Taylor cone formation throughout the fiber production process. With a 10 wt% of Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA) polymer solution and at an applied voltage of 30 kV, the production rate was observed as 1.690 g/h and average fiber diameter obtained was 160.5 ± 48.9 nm for PVA and 124.9 ± 49.8 nm for Cellulose acetate (CA) respectively. Moreover, the setup also provides the added advantage of using high viscosity polymer solutions in electrospinning. This approach is expected to increase the range of multifunctional electrospun nanofiber applications.
采用各种机器配置的静电纺丝技术正在被用于生产具有不同输出速率的聚合物纳米纤维。现有方法的一些局限性包括使用高粘度的聚合物和封装纳米颗粒以实现功能。本文展示了一种轮廓多针静电纺丝（PMES）装置，该装置克服了针式和无针式静电纺丝的局限性，如针堵塞、颗粒沉降和不受控制/不均匀的泰勒锥形成、对非常高电压的要求以及纳米颗粒在纳米纤维中不受控制的分布。当前设置的关键特征是使用轮廓针排列，这有助于形成球形聚合物液滴，从而确保整个纤维生产过程中均匀的泰勒锥形成。使用 10wt%的聚乙烯醇（PVA）聚合物溶液，在 30kV 的外加电压下，PVA 的产量为 1.690g/h，平均纤维直径为 160.5±48.9nm，CA 的平均纤维直径为 124.9±49.8nm。此外，该装置还提供了在静电纺丝中使用高粘度聚合物溶液的额外优势。这种方法有望增加多功能静电纺纳米纤维应用的范围。
