Issue 43, 2015

Highly-twisted, continuous nanofibre yarns prepared by a hybrid needle-needleless electrospinning technique

Abstract

Nanofibres prepared by electrospinning have shown enormous potential for various applications. They are obtained predominantly in the form of nonwoven fibre webs. The 2-dimensional nonwoven feature and fragility have considerably confined their further processing into fabrics through knitting or weaving. Nanofibre yarns, which are nanofibre bundles with continuous length and a twist feature, show improved tensile strength, offering opportunities for making 3-dimensional fibrous materials with precisely controlled fibrous architecture, porous features and fabric dimensions. Despite a few techniques having been developed for electrospinning nanofibre yarns, they are chiefly based on the needle electrospinning technique, which often has low nanofibre productivity. In this study, we for the first time report a nanofibre yarn electrospinning technique which combines both needle and needleless electrospinning. A rotating intermediate ring collector was employed to directly collect freshly-electrospun nanofibres into a fibrous cone, which was further drawn and twisted into a nanofibre yarn. This novel system was able to produce high tenacity yarn (tensile strength 128.9 MPa and max strain 222.1%) at a production rate of 240 m h−1, with a twist level up to 4700 twists per metre. The effects of various parameters, e.g. position of the electrospinning units, operating conditions and polymer concentration, on nanofibre and yarn production were examined.

Graphical abstract: Highly-twisted, continuous nanofibre yarns prepared by a hybrid needle-needleless electrospinning technique

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
05 Mar 2015
Accepted
07 Apr 2015
First published
07 Apr 2015

RSC Adv., 2015,5, 33930-33937

Author version available

Highly-twisted, continuous nanofibre yarns prepared by a hybrid needle-needleless electrospinning technique

M. N. Shuakat and T. Lin, RSC Adv., 2015, 5, 33930 DOI: 10.1039/C5RA03906A

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