Abstract
Increasingly advanced applications of polymer fibers are driving the demand for new, high-performance fiber types. One way to produce polymer fibers is by electrospinning from polymer solutions and melts. Polymer melt electrospinning produces fibers with small diameters through solvent-free processing and has applications within different fields, ranging from textile and construction, to the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. Modeling of the electrospinning process has been mainly limited to simulations of geometry-dependent electric field distributions. The associated large change in viscosity upon fiber formation and elongation is a key issue governing the electrospinning process, apart from other environmental factors. This paper investigates the melt electrospinning of aerogel-containing fibers and proposes a logistic viscosity model approach with parametric ramping in a finite element method (FEM) simulation. The formation of melt electrospun fibers is studied with regard to the spinning temperature and the distance to the collector. The formation of PET-Aerogel composite fibers by pneumatic transport is demonstrated, and the critical parameter is found to be the temperature of the gas phase. The experimental results form the basis for the electrospinning model, which is shown to reproduce the trend for the fiber diameter, both for polymer as well as polymer-aerogel composites.
Highlights
Polymer micro- and nanofibers can be created in several ways, and one fast and efficient process is electrospinning [1]
Electrospinning occurs when a droplet of fiber-forming solution or melt is placed in an electric field
The critical point of melt electrospinning occurs when the temperature of the melt is in a range above or equal to the glass transition temperature, but below the decomposition temperature [2]
Summary
Polymer micro- and nanofibers can be created in several ways, and one fast and efficient process is electrospinning [1]. Among these types of advanced materials [8,11,12,13] are aerogel/polymer composite fibers, described earlier by this group [14,15] Such materials allow for a combination of the incredible thermal insulation properties of silica-based aerogel and the mechanical strength and ease of handling of polymer fibers. The present study reports a novel method for pneumatic transport of particulate matter into the core of melt electrospun fibers Up until now, this has only been demonstrated for solvent electrospinning [14,15]. InsugelTM aerogel particles were transported pneumatically into the core of the PET polymer fibers at different flow rates to create PET-Aerogel composites These experiments formed the basis of the simulation of the fiber diameter with a viscosity ramping approach implemented as a temperature-dependent logistic viscosity model
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