from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
Composite nanofiber materials offer advanced properties and functions applicable in many fields, especially in medicine. Nowadays, these materials are mainly fabricated using the DC electrospinning technology with multi-spinnerets electrodes designed for such purpose. For the novel, highly effective AC electrospinning method, spinnerets distance needs to be increased enormously in order to avoid mutual affecting of virtual collectors created around each of the spinnerets. This fact limits the efficient usage of multi spinnerets types of electrodes for production of composite nanofiber materials using the AC electrospinning technology. Here we show, that two independent polymeric solutions can be effectively supplied to a single unique AC electrode and electrospun in order to fabricate bi-component nanofiber structure. This new electrode was designed using a CAD software with relation to the results of electric field distribution analysed in the Autodesk Simulation Mechanical. The manufactured electrode was experimentally verified for simultaneous AC electrospinning of PVAc and PVB solutions, both with EtOH solvents. SEM scan of fabricated material proved a bi-component structure of the final product. Our results demonstrate the new, experimentally verified technology for simultaneous electrospinning of two independent polymeric solutions from a single electrode and fabricating of composite nanofiber material of advanced mechanical properties. Based on the kind of polymeric solution spun, this represents new possibilities for various applications, e.g. tissue engineering, filtration and others.
Keywords: AC-electrospinning, AC-spinneret, AC-electrode, Composite nanofibrous material,© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.