Response Surface Modeling of Electrospinning Parameters on Titanium Oxide Nanofibers' Diameter: A Box-Behnken Design (BBD)

Electrospinning has been employed to produce titanium oxide nanofibers from an ethanolic solution containing precursor titanium tetraisopropoxide and polymer polyvinylpyrrolidone with acetic acid as a stabilizer. Response surface methodology based on Box-Behnken Design was implemented to investigate the influence of applied voltage (10-25 kV), flow rate (1.0-3.0 ml/hr) and tip to collector distance (6-14 cm) on the electrospun nanofibers diameter. The fibers' diameter was examined using scanning electron microscope. A second order polynomial was developed to predict the diameter of the fiber. The importance of each parameter was tested through analysis of variance with 95% of confidence level. From reduced response surface model, tip to collector distance was the most significance factor whereas applied voltage appeared to be the least significance factor in predicting fibers diameter. The decrement of 26.2% with an increase of tip to collector distance from 6 cm to 14 cm at constant flow rate and applied voltage. When the applied voltage increased from 10 kV to 25 kV, the fiber diameter decreased 10.96%.