Continuous Nanofiber Bundle Production Using Helical Spinnerets with Different Configurations in Needleless Electrospinning

Abstract

This study investigates the production of continuous nanofiber bundles using needleless electrospinning with a focus on helical spinneret configurations. It delves into the effects of spinneret diameter, pitch length, and thickness on nanofiber bundle characteristics, employing polyacrylonitrile as the polymer. The research highlights the significant impact of these parameters on the nanofiber morphology, bundle width, productivity, and deposition properties of nanofiber bundles. Scanning electron microscopy imaging, bundle depositions analyses, and electric field modeling with COMSOL Multiphysics are applied for the nanofiber bundles electrospun by helical spinnerets. As the diameter of the spinneret increases, productivity, bundle width, deposition ratio, deposition intensity, and deposition homogeneity are increased significantly. Additionally, an increase in spinneret thickness leads to a decrease in average nanofiber diameter. Specifically, increasing the spinneret diameter from 30 to 50 mm, pitch length from 20 to 40 mm, and reducing thickness from 3 to 1 mm increases productivity by 170%, 72%, and 32%, respectively. As a result of practical and modeling studies on helical spinnerets, the optimized parameters are determined as 1 mm thickness, 40 mm pitch length, and 50 mm diameter.