A comparative study of electrospinning process for two different collectors: The effect of the collecting method on the nanofiber diameters

Abstract

In this study, an experimental investigation of the electrospinning process has been conducted using two successive Taguchi experimental designs, namely L18 (35) and L9 (34) for the electrospinning setups with a rotating drum and a stationary plate, respectively. The processing parameters are; concentration of poly(vinyl alcohol) in aqueous solution, applied voltage, distance between the needle and the collector, flow rate of the polymer solution and the rotational speed of the collecting drum. The primary process setup is used to analyse the effects of the parameters to the diameter of nanofibers and its standard deviation (SD), through examinations of the range analysis and graphical interpretations. The secondary process set up is used to gather the data to verify the results and to compare the effects of the collecting methods on the process outputs. A short literature review of the publications on which parameter effects were analysed by statistical methods is also presented.

Keywords

• electrospinning
• nanofiber diameters
• collector types
• experimental design
• taguchi