Simulation and experimental study of nanofiber yarns prepared by disc electrospinning

Abstract

Conjugated electrospinning is an exciting way to prepare nanoyarns. However, all currently reported preparations of nanofiber yarns by conjugated electrospinning use needles, which can cause discontinuous yarn production due to plugging needles during the preparation process. Herein, a novel disc treated with rounded corners as the spinneret of conjugated electrospinning was developed to spin continuously twisted nanofiber yarn to overcome the existing problems. First, finite element analysis was used to optimize the parameters of the disc. The disc exhibited the optimal field strength distribution on the spinning surface when the disc rounding angle was 0.7, and the coefficient of variation value of the field strength was only 12.6%. After that, we optimized the effect of spinning parameters on yarn yield by central composite design. In addition, the impact of spinning parameters on fiber morphology was also investigated. Under the optimized parameters, it is possible to spin continuously at a 360 m/h speed for at least 1 h without breaking. This innovative approach provides a novel idea for continuously producing nanofiber yarns.