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Nano Research 2023, 16(4): 5709-5714 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-5198-1
Research Article | Issue | Published: 29 December 2022

Double-stretching as an effective and generalizable strategy towards thinner nanofibers in solution blow spinning

Show Author's Information Baopu Zhang1,2,  Ziwei Li1,  Zekun Cheng1,  Lei Li1,  Chong Yang1,  Haiyang Wang1,  Hui Wu1( )
State Key Laboratory of Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139, USA
Keywords:
computational fluid dynamics, nanofibers, solution blow spinning, double-stretching
Topics:
FabricationNanowires
Cite this article:
Zhang B, Li Z, Cheng Z, et al. Double-stretching as an effective and generalizable strategy towards thinner nanofibers in solution blow spinning. Nano Research, 2023, 16(4): 5709-5714. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-5198-1
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Solution blow spinning (SBS) applies high-speed airflow to prepare fibers by generating a strong stretching force. It has the advantages of scalable production, tailorable morphologies, and wide applicability. Yet, the SBS strategy can hardly prepare fibers down to the sub-100 nanometers, which limits its performance in demanding applications. Herein, we overcome the limitation of SBS by introducing a second airflow. This novel strategy is termed double-stretching SBS (DS-SBS) because an extra stretching force is exerted on the fiber when it converges with the second airflow. Polyamide6 nanofibers with an average diameter of 80 nm are successfully prepared with the DS-SBS strategy, while the SBS strategy could only prepare submicron fibers with an average diameter of 120 nm. Further, the generality of the DS-SBS strategy to reduce fiber diameter is verified on numerous solute–solvent pairs.


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Abstract
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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Double-stretching as an effective and generalizable strategy towards thinner nanofibers in solution blow spinning

Show Author's information Baopu Zhang1,2, Ziwei Li1, Zekun Cheng1, Lei Li1, Chong Yang1, Haiyang Wang1, Hui Wu1( )
State Key Laboratory of Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139, USA

Abstract

Solution blow spinning (SBS) applies high-speed airflow to prepare fibers by generating a strong stretching force. It has the advantages of scalable production, tailorable morphologies, and wide applicability. Yet, the SBS strategy can hardly prepare fibers down to the sub-100 nanometers, which limits its performance in demanding applications. Herein, we overcome the limitation of SBS by introducing a second airflow. This novel strategy is termed double-stretching SBS (DS-SBS) because an extra stretching force is exerted on the fiber when it converges with the second airflow. Polyamide6 nanofibers with an average diameter of 80 nm are successfully prepared with the DS-SBS strategy, while the SBS strategy could only prepare submicron fibers with an average diameter of 120 nm. Further, the generality of the DS-SBS strategy to reduce fiber diameter is verified on numerous solute–solvent pairs.

Keywords: computational fluid dynamics, nanofibers, solution blow spinning, double-stretching

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 01 June 2022
Revised: 18 September 2022
Accepted: 14 October 2022
Published: 29 December 2022
Issue date: April 2023

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press 2022

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

The help of Dr. Zhiwen Cui and Xinyu Jiang on carrying out and post-processing the CFD simulation is greatly appreciated. This study is supported by the Basic Science Center Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (No. 51788104) and Beijing Natural Science Foundation (No. JQ19005).

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