Fabrication of sPP nanofibers by solution electrospinning which has recently been exclusively used to fabricate non-crystalline polymer nanofibers was examined. sPP nanofibers with the average diameter of 230 nm were successfully fabricated by using methylcyclohexane for solvent at room temperature (25�C). The obtained diameter was significantly thinner than the minimum diameter of 350 nm of PP fibers reported previously. It was found that increasing viscosity of the sPP solution did not produce thinner sPP fibers in our experiments, which was historically the common way of fabricating thinner fibers. A wise and careful selection of solvent by considering the evaporation rate of the solvent could prevent the sPP solution from gelation to keep the solution in the sol state for the fabrication of thinner sPP fibers by electrospinning. The results could be applied to the other semi-crystalline polyolefins that also possessed similar gelation characteristics in order to produce thinner polyolefin nanofibers.

Syndiotactic polypropylene nanofibers fabricated by a solution electrospinning method with single solvent at ambient temperature

245th National Meeting (2013)

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