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Electrospinning on a plucked string

  • Polymers
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Abstract

Preparation of high-quality nanofibers by electrospinning with low applied voltage and industrial scales remains challenging. A novel differential electrospinning technology for nanofiber preparation was proposed, with which multiple jets are generated from the string by plucking. The spinning principles were investigated, and the operation parameters were optimized. Results showed that lower threshold electric field was required for jets generation by plucked string electrospinning compared with the conventional needleless electrospinning. The finest average diameter of nanofibers with a narrow distribution range of 143 ± 16 nm was obtained at an applied voltage of 25 kV, a PVA concentration of 8 wt%, a rotational speed of 150 rpm and a spinning distance of 7 cm. The maximum yield for single string was as high as 2.64 g h−1 at a PVA concentration of 12 wt%. It was demonstrated that the proposed technology is feasible for manufacturing of nanofibers with lower voltage and high productivity as the string could be modularly extended.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program (Grant No. 2016YFB0302002) and National Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51603009). The reviewers’ valuable comments are appreciated and Dr Yiqiang Fan was thanked for the grammar modifications of manuscript. We thank Dr Lisheng Cheng for the major revision improvement and Dr Jiahao Liang for the figures revision and manuscript improvement.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, China

    Xiaoqing Chen, Youchen Zhang, Xuetao He, Haoyi Li, Bin Wei & Weimin Yang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Organic–Inorganic Composites, Beijing, 100029, China

    Youchen Zhang, Haoyi Li & Weimin Yang

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  1. Xiaoqing Chen
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  2. Youchen Zhang
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  3. Xuetao He
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  4. Haoyi Li
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Correspondence to Haoyi Li.

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Chen, X., Zhang, Y., He, X. et al. Electrospinning on a plucked string. J Mater Sci 54, 901–910 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-018-2870-7

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