Effects of Polarity on Electrospinning Process

Abstract

As one of the nanofiber production processes, the electrospinning process has a conventional configuration consisting of a charged syringe and a grounded collector plate. In this study, the polarities of the electrodes are reversed so that while the collector is charged by power supply, the syringe is grounded. A solution of 7.5 wt % polyvinyl (alcohol)/water is electrospun. The conventional setup and the new inverse setup are compared in terms of production efficiency and the diameter of the nanofibers is produced. Thus, it is aimed to determine which configuration best suits for an extruder-collector system in an industrial context. Results showed that the conventional setup has a noticeably higher nanofiber production efficiency than the new setup due to a lack of Coulombic force acting on the polymer jet in the new setup. Also, nanofiber diameters and web layer pore sizes produced by the conventional setup are much finer and more homogenously distributed than those produced by the new reversed setup.