Hello, I am trying to fabricate electrospun nanofibers from 20wt.% PVDF solution in DMF:Acetone (7:3 ratio). My electrospinning time was set to 20 minutes however, in the first 10 minutes of the process, I have noticed these protrusions on my collector. I wish my fibers to be thick enough for UTM testing but then this happens and there will uneven distribution of fibers. I have also tried increasing the tip-to-collector distance but the flight becomes more erratic and the fibers tend to deposit somewhere else. The fiber morphology is great but I have to deal with these "protrusions" to obtain a flat sheet of nanofibers.
Any help would be appreciated.
Dear Jean Raynell Bello
PVDF fibers don't stick easily with a neighboring fibers hence the fibers will be fluffy. Use Rotating drum collector to overcome the problem.
all the best.
It seems that your problem is the humidity. I have notice the same behavior when producing polystyrene fibers by electrospining.
It seems to me there is a collection of the charges on the surface especially on the thicker place that makes the appearance of protrusions as a result of repulsion of the charges; my suggestion is
1.increase the distance between the tip and the collector
2.try the spinning process be in two or more steps by moving the target from upper then down to get a good distribution.
I'd agree with Jarib regarding humidity being an issue. I have had similar issues electrospinning polyacrylonitrile in a high humidity (>60%) environment. As a result, I try to ensure that humidity in my electrospinning enclosure remains ~40%.
Dear Jean Raynell Bello,
In my opinion, the most possible reason of this problem that the PVDF hadn't been dissolved 100%. I mean there were still some small particles didn't dissolve completely leading to inhomogeneous distribution of the electrospun fibers on the web. In other words, that will effect on the bending instability of the jet.
Different polymer concentrations of PVDF with different solvent ratios covering the ratio and solvents type which you used were electrospun successfully at our paper, i suggest you to follow the parameters used in it:
B. Zaarour, W. Zhang, L. Zhu, X. Y. Jin and C. Huang, Text. Res. J., 2018, DOI:10.1177/0040517518792748.
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