Electrospinning and characterization of highly sulfonated polystyrene fibers

Nanofibers of highly sulfonated (IEC ∼4.5 meq/g) polystyrene (SPS) were successfully electrospun. To accomplish this, the process of electrospinning this difficult-to-spin material was studied in detail. Fiber quality was optimized by manipulating the process and solution variables to fabricate cont...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Polymer (Guilford) 2010-04, Vol.51 (9), p.1983-1989
Main Authors: Subramanian, Chitrabala, Weiss, R.A., Shaw, Montgomery T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Electrospinning
Exact sciences and technology
Machinery and processing
Plastics
Polyelectrolyte
Polymer industry, paints, wood
Spinning
Sulfonated polystyrene
Technology of polymers
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Nanofibers of highly sulfonated (IEC ∼4.5 meq/g) polystyrene (SPS) were successfully electrospun. To accomplish this, the process of electrospinning this difficult-to-spin material was studied in detail. Fiber quality was optimized by manipulating the process and solution variables to fabricate continuous bead-free fibers. Bead-free fibers (average diameter 260nm) were electrospun from 25wt% SPS (500kDa) in DMF at an electrode separation of 10cm, an applied voltage of 16.5kV and a flow rate of 0.3mL/h. With increasing solution concentration, and thereby the solution viscosity, the morphology changed from beads to bead-on-string fibers to continuous cylindrical fibers. Beaded fibers and continuous bead-free fibers of SPS (500kDa) could be spun at ∼2Ce and 3.5Ce, respectively, where Ce is the entanglement concentration determined from solution-viscosity measurements. The onset of formation of beaded fibers coincided with a sharp transition in the scaling of the storage modulus-concentration relationship. Graphical abstract [Display omitted]
ISSN:0032-3861
1873-2291
DOI:10.1016/j.polymer.2010.02.052