Direct generation of electrospun interconnected macroporous nanofibers using a water bath as a collector

Abstract

Porous nanofibers are of great significance to different applications. Herein, interconnected macroporous nanofibers were electrospun from polystyrene (PS)/chlorobenzene (CB)/N’N-dimethylformamide (DMF) using a bath collector. The effects of the solvent ratio and bath collector temperature on the structure of PS fibers are studied. The results showed that the presence of CB is essentials for the formation of porous fibers. Furthermore, the size of the pores on the surface of fibers increases by increasing the ratio of CB as well as decreasing the temperature of the bath collector. The formation mechanism of the interconnected macroporous structure is discovered. The BET test showed that these fibers had an outstanding specific surface area (SSA) of ~44.27 m ^2 g ^−1 . We believe our findings can be used as a good reference for the generation of electrospun nanofibers with interconnected macroporous using a water bath as a collector.

Keywords

• polystyrene
• porous materials
• electrospinning
• bath collector
• phase separation
• non-solvent