Third Day Poster Session, 17 June 2010 - NanoTR-VI

Poster Session, Thursday, June 17
Theme F686 - N1123
Morphology of the Electrospun Nylon-66 and Polybutylene terephthalate Nanofibers
Fatma Kayacı and Tamer Uyar*
UNAM-Institute of Materials Science & Nanotechnology, Bilkent University, Ankara, 06800, Turkey
Abstract – This work covers our recent studies on fabrication of polymeric nanofibers by electrospinning technique.
Nanofibers/nanowebs of Nylon-66 (PA66) and Polybutylene terephthalate (PBT) have been obtained by electrospinning and
the morphology of the resulting nanofibers/nanowebs was investigated by scanning electron microscope (SEM) .
Electrospinning is the most versatile method for
fabrication of nanofibers, since it is a simple and
cost effective technique. The nanofibers can be
electrospun from a wide range of polymers that are
soluble in various solvent systems. In addition, the
ability to produce nanofibers/nanowebs which have
unique properties like small pore size, large surface
area to volume ratio, high porosity make
electrospun nanofibers more attractive for many
applications such as filtration, textile, tissue
engineering, wound healing, release control,
sensors, energy, etc [1-6]. Electrospinning is a
simple process in which a polymer solution or melt
is subjected to high voltage (10 kv- 60 kv) and the
fibers which have diameter in the range of few
microns to few hundred nanometers are produced in
the form of nonwoven [4-8].
Nylon-66 is an important semi-crystalline
thermoplastic polymer having mechanical strength,
chemical resistance, toughness, and dimensional
stability. Therefore, nylon-66 is one of the most
used polymers for numerous applications such as
technical texiles, filtration, and especially
engineering field [7,8]. Polybutylene terephthalate
(PBT), a linear polyester of aromatic nature, is also
one of the important engineering plastics due to its
good mechanical, and thermal properties [9].
In this study, Nylon 66 and PBT
nanofibers/nanowebs were obtained by
electrospinning. Formic acid/chloroform (75/25)
and hexafluoroisopropanol (HFIP) were used as
solvent for Nylon-66 and PBT, respectively.
Polymer concentration, tip-to-collector distance and
applied voltage were optimized in order to obtain
bead-free uniform nanofibers.
Fig.1.SEM images of electrospun fibers from formic acid
/chloroform (75/25) solution (a) 5% PA66, (b) 10% PA66
Different fiber morphologies were obtained for
Nylon-66 and PBT electrospun nanofibers when
different polymer concentrations were used (fig.1
and fig.2). Beads were formed when the polymer
concentration was low for both of polymers. When
the polymer concentration was increased, typical
circular fibers were obtained for PBT; however,
ribbon-like fibers were obtained for Nylon-66
because of the rapid evaporation of the solvent. It
was also observed that the diameter of the fibers
were increased as the polymer concentration
increased or tip-to-collector distance and applied
voltage decreased.
Figure 2. SEM images of electrospun fibers HFIP
solutions (a) 15% PBT, (b) 20% PBT
* Corresponding author (uyar@unam.bilkent.edu.tr)
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6th Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Conference, zmir, 2010 781