In this study, we conducted a subtle regulation of micro- and nanostructures of electrospun polystyrene (PS) fibers via tuning the molecular weights of the polymers with different sources, solvent compositions, and solution concentration. The surface morphology and porous structures of as-prepared PS fibers were characterized, and a full and intuitive observation of the porous structures as well as a tentative account of the formation of porous structures was presented. Additionally, the porous PS fibrous mats showed much higher oil absorption capacities than those of commercial polypropylene fibers in the form of a non-woven fabric, which displays a bight future for oil spill cleanups. We believe that such regulation of micro- and nanostructures of the PS fibers will widen the range of their applications in self-cleaning materials, ultra-high sensitivity sensors, tissue engineering, ion exchange materials, etc.
Amphiphobic, microporous polyurethane (PU) composite microfibrous membranes exhibiting robust waterproof and breathable performances were prepared by the introduction of a novel synthesized fluorinated PU (FPU) containing head perfluoroalkane segment. By employing the FPU incorporation, the pristine PU membranes were endowed with the superhydrophobicity with water contact angle of 156u and the oleophobicity with oil contact angle of 145u. The role of FPU for the tuning of the morphology, surface wettability and mechanical property of resultant membranes were discussed, and a plausible twostep break mechanism upon the external stress is proposed. The quantitative fractal dimension analysis using N 2 adsorption method has confirmed the correlation between the hierarchical roughness and amphiphobicity. Furthermore, the as-prepared membranes exhibited high water resistance (39.3 kPa), good air permeability (8.46 L m 22 s 21 ) and water vapor transmittance (0.384 kg m 22 h 21 ), and comparable tensile strength (10 MPa), suggesting their use as promising materials for a variety of potential applications in protective clothing, bioseparation, membrane distillation, tissue engineering and catalyst carriers, etc., and also provided new insight into the design and development of functional microfibrous membranes through FPU incorporation.
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