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Nanodroplet Formations in Electrospun Fibers of Immiscible Polymer Blends and Their Effects on Fractionated Crystallization

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Nanodroplets

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Nanoscale Science and Technology ((LNNST,volume 18))

Abstract

A new and facile method to obtain polymeric nanodroplets was developed by thermally annealing of electrospun fibers of immiscible polymer blends. Through thermally annealing at a temperature slightly above the glass transition temperature of the matrix, the ribbon- or fiber-like dispersed phase broke up into nanodroplet with the diameter mainly in the range of 50–300 nm due to the Plateau-Rayleigh instability. Our study shows that these nanodroplets can be used to study the fractionated crystallization and homogeneous nucleation of almost any semicrystalline polymers, such as poly(ethylene oxide), poly(vinylidene fluoride), polyethylene, and polypropylene. We observed that the homogeneously nucleated crystallization of PVDF took place at 55–60°C for the first time. Additionally, this method can be utilized to investigate the effect of nanoconfinement on crystalline morphologies of semicrystalline polymers.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would acknowledge the Chinese Scholarship Council, startup fund of Sichuan University (Grant No. 2011SCU11072), and NSF (DMR-0907580) for financial support. The authors are also grateful to Mr. Linghui Meng and Professor Gary Wnek at Case Western Reserve University for providing electrospinning instrument and technical assistance. The authors also acknowledge the assistance of synchrotron XRD experiments from Dr. Lixia Rong at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the work of Dr. Run Su.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Polymer Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, Sichuan, People’s Republic of China

    Ganji Zhong

  2. Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, 44106-7202, USA

    Lei Zhu

  3. Department of Chemistry and Applied Biological Sciences, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, 501 East St. Joseph Street, Rapid City, SD, 57701-3995, USA

    Hao Fong

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  1. State Key Laboratory of Electronic, University of Electronic Science and Technology, Chengdu, People's Republic of China

    Zhiming M. Wang

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Zhong, G., Zhu, L., Fong, H. (2013). Nanodroplet Formations in Electrospun Fibers of Immiscible Polymer Blends and Their Effects on Fractionated Crystallization. In: Wang, Z. (eds) Nanodroplets. Lecture Notes in Nanoscale Science and Technology, vol 18. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9472-0_2

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