Analysis of the effect of experimental parameters on the morphology of electrospun polyethylene oxide nanofibres and on their thermal properties

Electrospinning is a new and simple method of producing nanofibres by introducing electric field into polymer solutions. We perform an experimental investigation on the influence of processing parameters and solution properties on the structural morphology and average fibre diameter of electrospun polyethylene oxide (PEO) polymer solution and on their thermal properties. Experimental trials have been conducted to investigate the effect of solution parameters, such as concentration, addition of ethanol in PEO solution, solvent effect, as well as governing parameters, such as applied voltage, collection distance and flow rate. At higher concentrations, the nanofibres with regular morphology and, on average, uniform fibre diameter were obtained, and at lower concentrations of PEO polymer solution, the fibres showed irregular morphology with large variations in fibre diameter. We also found that the addition of ethanol increased the fibre diameter and produced bead-free fibres. Applied voltage, collection distance and flow rate also influence fibre morphology. To analyse the thermal properties of the fibres produced from the PEO powder and the electrospun nanofibres produced from the two polymer solutions (PEO + water and PEO + water/ethanol), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was used, and to determine the degree of crystallinity, X-ray diffraction technique has been used.