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The Critical Roles of the Gas Flow in Fabricating Polymer Nanofibers: A Mini-review

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Abstract

Polymer nanofibers attract more and more attention from academia and industry continuously due to their desirable properties, including high specific surface area, high porosity, and numerous chemically-active surface groups on the fiber surface. Gas flow was widely adopted to fabricate nanofibers such as solution blown, melt blown, gas flow-assisted melt electrospinning, and bubble electrospinning. However, a comprehensive review covered the roles that gas flow played in fabricating nanofibers, and their mechanism has not been analysed yet. This review classifies the roles of gas flow into jet initialization, jet stretching, increasing production, surface modification, and inhibition of thermal degradation, to deepen the understanding of gas flow during nanofiber preparation. The mechanism of gas flows in the above fields is reviewed in detail.

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Acknowledgements

The work was supported by National Key Research and Development Program (2016YFB0302000) China.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Chao Zhang, Haoyi Li, Weimin Yang & Jing Tan

  2. Taiyuan Research Institute, China Coal Science and Technology Group, Taiyuan, 030000, China

    Mingjun Chen

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  1. Chao Zhang
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  2. Mingjun Chen
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  3. Haoyi Li
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Correspondence to Haoyi Li.

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Zhang, C., Chen, M., Li, H. et al. The Critical Roles of the Gas Flow in Fabricating Polymer Nanofibers: A Mini-review. Adv. Fiber Mater. 4, 162–170 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42765-021-00114-7

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