In recent years, electrospinning has proven to be an extremely promising technique, enabling researchers to create excellent materials for various applications, such as filtration, drug delivery, textiles, nanocomposites and tissue engineering. However, it has been difficult to employ the conventional needle-based electrospinning process in industrial settings because of its typically low production rate of ~0.1-1 g of fiber/hour. To overcome this issue, several �needleless� or �free surface� electrospinning techniques are being investigated in recent times, in which multiple jetting is promoted simultaneously from a sufficiently large area of liquid surface. We are exploring one such technique which involves jetting from the liquid droplets that form on a wire electrode as it exits a bath of liquid with an entrained liquid coating.1This technique was demonstrated and a model of productivity was proposed for a solution of polyvinyl pyrrolidone in ethanol. Here, we extend this technique to aqueous polymer solutions because water as a solvent is highly desirable in food and pharmaceutical industries. For this study, we have chosen polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) which is widely used in both the industries. We are applying and modifying the previously developed model as necessary to account for the observed productivity for aqueous solutions. Aqueous polymer solutions are difficult to electrospin from wire electrode due to their high surface tensions and high viscosities, even at relatively low polymer concentrations. We encountered a few particular challenges, such as thin film formation between the wires on the rotating wire spindle and jetting of highly viscous liquids, and solved with a simple modification to the existing spindle design. Some newly observed phenomena include the formation of satellite droplets on the wire electrode and incomplete jetting from the droplets.1. Forward, K. M.; Rutledge, G. C., Free surface electrospinning from a wire electrode. Chemical Engineering Journal 2012,  183, 492-503.

Free surface electrospinning of aqueous polymer solutions from a wire electrode

247th National Meeting (2014)

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