A new method to prepare titanium nanowires based on electrospun polymer/metal nanocomposites has been developed. Titanium nanowires may find biomedical applications such as ligament prosthetics because of their anticipated biocompatibility and mechanical properties. Electrospinning provides a relatively inexpensive and efficient method to produce long and narrow nanofibers compared to other methods such as solution phase synthesis and chemical vapor deposition.  To date, only titanium oxide nanowires have been produced by electrospinning. Our strategy employs a solution of polyvinylpyrrolidone and titanium-nanoparticles that is electrospun onto silicon wafers placed on a conducting substrate. The result is a mesh of nanofibers ~200-400 nm in diameter. This polymer-titanium nanocomposite is subjected to heat treatment to remove the organic polymer. The titanium nanowires are formed by sintering the titanium nanoparticles under a reducing atmosphere.  This procedure minimizes oxidation. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) reveals that our new method results in a titanium nanowire mesh that is composed of long strands of sintered nanoparticles. The composition of the titanium nanowires was determined by energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and shows that the mesh is largely unreduced titanium metal. The results of SEM and EDS will be presented elucidating the morphology and relative oxygen content of the titanium nanowires produced at each stage of the preparation.

Titanium metal nanowires via electrospun polymer nanocomposite

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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