Abstract
ABSTRACTIn previous work, an atmospheric pressure plasma jet was applied to successfully improve the electrospinnability of poly‐ε‐caprolactone (PCL) which enabled the fabrication of beadless nanofibers. In this paper, we report the aging effect of the plasma treatment to evaluate the robustness of the developed process. For this purpose, plasma‐treated PCL polymer solutions with different exposure time were stored for 1 and 8 days and the aged solutions were analyzed in terms of conductivity, viscosity, surface tension, pH, and polymer molecular weight. During storage, the surface tension and acidity of the plasma‐treated solutions were maintained constant. However, the viscosity was found to be significantly lower after 8 days which was attributed to PCL degradation. Electrospinning of all stored PCL solutions resulted in the generation of beadless PCL nanofibers. The plasma treatment effects were thus found to be highly stable over time and capable of producing high‐quality PCL nanofibers up to 8 days. © 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2020, 137, 48914.
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