Investigation On The Preparation And Properties Of Electrospun Poly(butylene Succinate)(PBS) Nanofibers

Electrospinning technology is one of the most important and fundamental methods to manufacture ultrafine fibers, even nanofibers. Because of their high surface area, distinctive netlike structure, high microporosity, and the bright future with various applications, electrospun nanofiber has already become a research hot in nanotechnology field and industry all over the world. At the same time, as a response to the problem of increasing white waste, degradable polymers have attracted more and more attention. Aliphatic polyesters, which are degradable polymers, have been attracted great interests in textile and other industry, among which poly(butylene succinate)(PBS) is especially important due to its high properties and degradability. Combining the electrospinning technology with degradable materials, a kind of electrospinning fiber net with outstanding nanofiber effects as well as degradable property can be produced, which can widely used in the field of textile, medical treatment and hygiene health, biotechnology, environment project, etc.The solution system, which mainly included the solvent system and the weight concentration, was firstly investigated in this paper. And the optimal solvent system and weight concentration were obtained from lots of experimental analysis. The effects of process parameters on the diameter and morphology of PBS fibers was studied. And the process parameters were optimized using single factor analysis and method of orthogonal design. The results show that, weight concentration, applied voltage, speed of spinning and electrode distance all have effects on the diameter and morphology of PBS fibers, and the line according to their effect factor are as following: weight concentration, applied voltage, speed of spinning and electrode distance, which show that weight concentration is the most obvious effect factor. According to the experimental results in this paper, the average diameters of PBS fibers increase with the increase of weight concentration and electrospinning speed, and the decrease of applied voltage and electrode distance. Furthermore, the effects of pore sizes of needle and additives on diameter of PBS fiber were also discussed. From all the experimental results in this paper, the optimal process parameters can be obtained as following: the solvent is CF/CE (7/3), the weight concentration is 14wt%, the applied voltage is 20kV, the spinning speed, is 0.1ml/h and the electrode distance is 14cm and the amount of additive such as lithium chloride is 0.5wt% if necessary.In order to stduy the properties of PBS fibers, their thermal properties and degree of crystallization were measured by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and wide angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD), respectively. And compareing with those of PBS chips before electrospinning show that the thermal properties and degree of crystallization of PBS fibers have no obviously change. The degradation behavior of PBS fibers was also studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The experimental results show that PBS fibers have excellent degradable property in NaOH solution.