Highthroughput Electrospinning of Biopolymers

Our research is in developing a high throughput method to produce polymer fibers via melt electrospinning.  While scientific reports on solution electrospinning have steadily increased since the late 1990s, electrospinning directly from a polymer melt has been received less attention.  Molten polymer is electrospun using a customized experimental setup based on a single screw extruder and a multiple orifice die. Material (molecular weight and rheological properties) and process (temperature, voltage, collection distance, flow rate) parameters were systematically varied in order to optimize the quality of the resulting fibers.  Polymer fibers with average diameters as low as 320 nm were obtained making the process described in this contribution as efficient as solution electrospinning but with the significant advantage that higher fiber yields were achieved and no solvents were required.   A mathematical model for melt electrospinning has also been developed in order to better explain the phenomena observed and to gain a deeper understanding of the controlling variables and potential scalability of the described process.