Effects of solution concentration on the synthesis of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) electrospun nanofibers

Abstract

Recent advances in nanotechnology have witnessed tremendous progress concerning nanofiber synthesis and practical applications. Electrospinning is a simple, versatile, and cost-effective technology that relies on electrostatic repulsions between surface charges to continuously fabricate various scalable assemblies from a wide range of raw materials (polymers, ceramics, nanoparticles, carbon nanomaterials, gels, etc.) with diameters down to macro-nano scale. Nanofibers prepared by electrospinning possess remarkable large and specific surface area to volume ratio, interconnected and tunable structures, diverse morphologies, physio-chemical and mechanical properties. In this paper, Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanofibers with different concentrations and under constant electrospinning conditions have been prepared and characterized. The increase of the PVDF polymeric concentration improved the morphological structure of the PVDF nanofibers due to the enhanced molecular chain entanglement which allows the stretching and elongation of the fibers during the electrospinning process. At higher PVDF concentration, the fiber diameters become thinner and beadless nanofiber mats are obtained. Finally, the potential practical applications of electrospun PVDF nanofibers are addressed in this paper.