Polybutylene Succinate Auxetic Membrane Produced by Solution Electrospinning

Abstract

Herein, a simple and cost‐effective method (solution electrospinning) is used to produce auxetic biobased polybutylene succinate membranes. The effect of fiber morphology, orientation, and alignment is investigated on the mechanical properties of the resulting membranes with a focus on Poisson's ratio. The degree of orientation is controlled by increasing the speed of the collector (from 4.03 to 11.01 m s−1) during membrane fabrication. The results indicate that membranes with oriented fibers show a more auxetic behavior than those with randomly orientated fibers. In particular, samples with a high level of alignment and tested in the transverse direction present higher negative Poisson's ratios (down to −5.73) compared to samples tested in the parallel direction (Poisson's ratios down to −2.90). However, samples tested in the transverse direction show lower tensile properties with higher dissipated energy and damping factor. Therefore, the level of fiber orientation and the number of fibers in the transverse and parallel directions are the most important parameters controlling the mechanical properties of electrospun membranes.