Zhang Hongdi

Polymer nanofibers prepared by low-voltage near-field electrospinning

Electrospinning is a straightforward method to produce micro/nanoscale fibers from polymer solutions typically using an operating voltage of 10 kV?30 kV and spinning distance of 10 cm?20 cm. In this paper, polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) non-woven nanofibers with diameters of 200 nm?900 nm were prepared by low-voltage near-field electrospinning with a working voltage of less than 2.8 kV and a spinning distance of less than 10 mm. Besides the uniform fibers, beaded-fibers were also fabricated and the formation mechanism was discussed. Particularly, a series of experiments were carried out to explore the influence of processing variables on the formation of near-field electrospun PVP nanofibers, including concentration, humidity, collecting position, and spinning distance.

Preparation of Curled Microfibers by Electrospinning with Tip Collector

We report on curled polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) microfibers fabricated by a modified electrospinning with a small nail as the tip collector. PVP (45 wt%) ethanol solution is electrospun under different working voltages ranging from 10 to 15, 20, 30 and 40 kV. It is found that with the increase of working voltage, the proportion of the curled fibers increases and the uniformity of the curled fibers improves, as well as the repeat distance of the curled structures reducing. Particularly, some curled fibers develop into helical structures under relatively high voltages. Further analyses indicate that the formation mechanism for the curled polymer fibers can be ascribed to electrical driven bending instability and/or mechanical jet buckling when hitting the collector surface. This modified electrospinning technique may be a cost-effective approach for the mass production of curled microfibers.