Morphology, structure and properties of nonwoven materials obtained by melt electrospinning of polypropylene–polystyrene blends

Abstract

AbstractMelt electrospinning is a convenient method for producing nonwoven materials from polymers with limited solubility, such as polyolefins and its blends. In this work, we investigated the process of electrospinning from melt of blends of thermodynamically immiscible polymers: polypropylene and polystyrene. Nonwoven materials with an average fiber diameter of 1.5–4 μm have been obtained. Typically, morphology of blended nonwoven material can be further modified by selective removal of one of the components. However, it was found that after removal of polystyrene from the produced materials, the fibers do not undergo significant changes in the surface morphology. At the same time, fiber fragments having a length of 5–100 μm appear and their number grows as the content of polystyrene in the initial material increases. According to X‐ray data, the supramolecular structure of polypropylene changes in the electrospinning process: a transition from a stable α‐form to a low‐ordered mesophase occurs. On the other hand, a reverse transition to crystallites of the α‐form of polypropylene was observed after polystyrene was removed with hot chloroform. All materials exhibit superhydrophobic properties and their wetting occurs according to the Wenzel model. Sorption capacity of the resulting materials is up to 90 g/g for motor oil.