Development of side-by-side pla/peo bicomponent electrospun fiber

Abstract

This research can be divided into 3 main parts. The first part, the investigation of processing parameters effect on morphology and formation of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) fiber in electrospinning process. We found the fiber size decreased with decreasing concentration. High DMF ratio solvent also tended to yield smaller fibers and smoother surface. Increasing applied voltage showed both effect of increased and decreased on fiber size. The flow rate and gap distance had a small effect on fiber size. In the second part, the apparatus for electrospinning of bicomponent fiber with side by side geometry was developed. Effect of key processing parameters on fiber formation of bicomponent electrospinning were studied in detail, using PLA and poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) as polymer model system. The surface of fiber can control by PLA solvent system which consist of porous surface and smooth surface. The fiber size increased with increasing PEO concentration. The compositions and fiber formation can control by flow rate ratio, while an applied voltage showed minor impact on the fiber size. Finally, After PEO phase removal, the C-shape ultrafine fiber was generated. In the final part, we demonstrated potential use of C-shape PLA electrospun fiber derived from PLA-PEO bicomponent fiber in filtration application. The C shape PLA fabric was used to improve filtration efficiency of a conventional filter media used in ordinary personal mask. The result showed that the C-shape modified filter media had higher filtration particulate loadings, while also improved filtration efficiency of the media by 23% compared to the conventional one.