An Investigation into Scalability Production of Ultra-Fine Nanofiber Using Electrospinning Systems

An integrated experimental and modeling approach was utilized to study scalable production of nanofibers via electrospinning. Two concepts have been investigated to study the fabrication of PAN nanofibers, which are needle-based and orifice-guided electrospinning to utilize the optimum setup. Moreover, it was observed that the natural flow rate of electrospinning does not scale linearly with number of needles (unlike polymer processing methods such as dry spinning), which was explained based on the partial pressure of the solvent vapor, peculiar to multi-needle setup, and the stress relaxation in the solution. In addition, it was demonstrated that the minimum voltage required to continuously electrospun fibers increases as the distance between needles is reduced, which was explained by the shielding effect of neighboring needles and elucidated by the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) models. Nano-fibers with diameters less than 100 nm were produced in this investigation.