Preparation of Polyacrylonitrile and polystyrene Blend Fibers through electrospinning

In this work, polyacrylonitrile (PAN) with nanoporous structures were successfully prepared via electrospinning technique. For the preparation of porous PAN nanofibers, two kinds of polymers of PAN and polystyrene (PS) were used as electrospun precursor materials, and then the bicomponent nanofibers of PAN and PS were extracted with chloroform to remove the PS in the composite polymer nanofibers. Electrospinning of PAN with 0-50% w/w at a 15% w/w total concentration in N, N-dimethylformamide produced fibres with decreasing averaged diameters from 500 to 1500 nm. Evidence of phase separation between PAN and PS in the bicomponent fibres was indicated by the characteristic PAN and PS peaks by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy