Branching in electrospinning of nanofibers

Abstract

Electrospinning of polymer nanofibers often begins with a single, straight, elongating, and electrified fluid jet that emanates from a droplet tip when the electric field at the surface is high enough. After some distance an electrically driven bending instability of the elongating jet occurs. For a polymer solution suitable for electrospinning, capillary instability does not cause the jet to become a spray of droplets. Under some conditions, a sequence of secondary jet branches emanates from the primary jet. This paper describes an experiment in which many closely spaced branches along the jet were observed during the electrospinning of a polycaprolactone solution. A theoretical description of the branching phenomenon is proposed.

Preparation of carbon nanotube embedded in polyacrylonitrile (pan) nanofibre composites by electrospinning process

“…Also, variations in the electrical field can influence the mechanism of fibre formation in the electrospinning process [36]. The viscoelastic properties of the solution play a significant role in the dynamics of jet elongation, different instability modes and shape of the Taylor cone [37][38][39][40]. However, Yu et al [40] revealed that the mechanism of fibre formation depends on the elasticity of the polymer solution, rather than its viscosity.…”

Assembly of Multi‐Stranded Nanofiber Threads through AC Electrospinning

“…This branching behavior had also been seen with DC electrospinning, [26] and has been modeled as surface undulations due to capillary and electrical stresses. [27] However, there were certain key differences between the DC and AC branching phenomenon. In DC spinning, there was generally a main jet with branches that were quite small compared to the main jet and the time scale for the branching event that was reported as approximately 10 s À1 .…”

A Smart Nanofiber Web That Captures and Releases Cells

“…[7] Electrospinning is applicable to almost any soluble or fusible polymer and allows for the production of a variety of continuous fibers with uniform diameters that range from the micro-to the nanometer scale. [8] Recently, multifunctional nanofibers were successfully developed by electrospinning polymers blended with additional compound such as carbon nanotubes, [9] ceramics, [10] and biomolecules, [11] or by surface modification [12] with peptides or proteins. These functional nanofibers are promising for more diverse applications such as in drug-delivery systems, [13] tissue engineering scaffolds, [14] and wound healing.…”