Ultralong well-aligned TiO2:Ln3+ (Ln\u2009=\u2009Eu, Sm, or Er) fibres prepared by modified electrospinning and their temperature-dependent luminescence

Yanbo Wu,Yanning Tang,Baojiu Chen,Shimin Liu,Hongquan Yu,Yang Song,Yue Li,Shasha Xu,Xijie Lan

doi:10.1038/srep44099

Yanbo Wu, Yanning Tang + Show 7 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/srep44099

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Abstract

Electrospinning has emerged as an attractive technique for the fabrication of ultrafine fibres in micro-/nano-scale fineness: however, it remains a significant technological challenge to assemble aligned fibre arrays via an conventional electrospinning method due to the inherent whipping instability of the polymeric jet. We herein have first developed a simple modified electrospinning method with which to prepare ultralong (>300 mm) well-aligned inorganic fibre arrays, i.e., using an ultrahigh molecular weight polymer to suppress or eliminate the whipping motion of the electrospun jet, has emerged as a facile approach for the continuous fabrication of well-aligned, ultralong fibres through simply using a rotating cylinder as the collector (it was not found necessary to use a very high rotating speed, extra magnetic, electrical field) in the electrospinning process. As result, the ultralong well-aligned TiO2:Ln3+ (Ln = Eu, Sm, or Er) fibre arrays can be obtained from ultrahigh molecular weight poly(ethylene oxide), tetra-n-butyl titanate (Ti(OC4H9)4) and lanthanide nitrate in the modified electrospinning approach. The grow mechanism and luminescent properties of these ultralong well-aligned TiO2:Ln3+ fibre arrays were also investigated.

Highlights

Electrospinning has emerged as an attractive technique for the fabrication of ultrafine fibres in micro-/ nano-scale fineness: it remains a significant technological challenge to assemble aligned fibre arrays via an conventional electrospinning method due to the inherent whipping instability of the polymeric jet
Varying the applied voltage exerted no obvious influence on the diameter of fibres, but the orientation of the as-prepared fibres proved to be dependent on the electrospinning voltage
The continuous, highly oriented, TiO2:Ln3+ (Ln =Eu, Sm, or Er) fibre arrays with linear alignment were successfully prepared by use of an improved electrospinning method

Summary

Introduction

Electrospinning has emerged as an attractive technique for the fabrication of ultrafine fibres in micro-/ nano-scale fineness: it remains a significant technological challenge to assemble aligned fibre arrays via an conventional electrospinning method due to the inherent whipping instability of the polymeric jet. Researchers has explored novel methods including mechanical, electrostatic, and other ways of improving the alignment of electrospun nanofibres[16,17,18] These methods comprising largely of using high speed collectors and/or through manipulating the electrical field have been devised and shown to work well in preparing aligned electrospun fibres and patterns. We develope a improved the conventional electrospinning technique to large-scale produce ultralong parallel well-aligned TiO2:Ln3+ (Ln =Sm, Eu, or Er) fibre arrays. In this method, the ultrahigh molecular weight PEO was exploited to eliminate the occurrence bending instability of the electrospinning jet to achieving highly aligned fibre assemblies. This simple approach can achieve ultra-long aligned inorganic nanofibres and nanostructures arrays in a straightforward and scalable fashion, suitable for a variety of practical applications

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