Influence of solvents on the formation of ultrathin uniform poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) nanofibers with electrospinning

Abstract

Although there have been many reports on the preparation and applications of various polymer nanofibers with the electrospinning technique, the understanding of synthetic parameters in electrospinning remains limited. In this article, we investigate experimentally the influence of solvents on the morphology of the poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP) micro/nanofibers prepared by electrospinning PVP solution in different solvents, including ethanol, dichloromethane (MC) and N,N‐dimethylformamide (DMF). Using 4 wt % PVP solutions, the PVP fibers prepared from MC and DMF solvents had a shape like a bead‐on‐a‐string. In contrast, smooth PVP nanofibers were obtained with ethanol as a solvent although the size distribution of the fibers was somewhat broadened. In an effort to prepare PVP nanofibers with small diameters and narrow size distributions, we developed a strategy of using mixed solvents. The experimental results showed that when the ratio of DMF to ethanol was 50:50 (w/w), regular cylindrical PVP nanofibers with a diameter of 20 nm were successfully prepared. The formation of these thinnest nanofibers could be attributed to the combined effects of ethanol and DMF solvents that optimize the solution viscosity and charge density of the polymer jet. In addition, an interesting helical‐shaped fiber was obtained from 20 wt % PVP solution in a 50:50 (w/w) mixed ethanol/DMF solvent. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 42: 3721–3726, 2004

Investigation of synthesis and processing of cellulose, cellulose acetate and poly(ethylene oxide) nanofibers incorporating anti-cancer/tumor drug cis-diammineplatinum (II) dichloride using electrospinning techniques

“…The wide array of adjustable parameters can be divided into three basic categories -solution, process and ambient parameters [6]. The solution parameters consist of the molecular weight of polymer [7,8], concentration [9][10][11][12], viscosity [13,14] surface tension [15] and conductivity [16]. The process parameters consist of voltage [17,18], flow rate [19], collector type [20,21] and distance between spinneret tip to collector [22,23].…”

Fabrication and Properties of Rubber Nanofiber from Electrospinning

“…It is well known that different solvents may contribute to different surface tensions. The solution viscosity is determined by the concentration of the polymer, but the value of surface tension depends on both the polymer and the solvent [25,26]. Table 1 shows physical properties of different solvents.…”

Encapsulation of Nicotinamide into Cellulose Based Electrospun Fibers

“…On other words, HEC ratio at 30% and PVA 70% (v/v) leads to a successful fiber formation process providing bead-free electrospun fibers. This may be due to the decrement of the polymers mixture surface tension that requires lower voltage to perform the Taylor cone (Yang et al, 2004). The viscosity and electrical conductivity values of PVA/HEC solutions were listed in Table 1.…”